Kohat

Kohat
کوهاټ
city

City and part of river Toi
Kohat
Coordinates: 33°35′N 71°26′E / 33.583°N 71.433°E / 33.583; 71.433
Country Pakistan
Province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Government
  MNA (NA-14) Sheryar Afridi
  MPA (PK-37 Kohat-1) Amjid Khan Afridi
  MPA (PK-38 Kohat-2) Zia Ullah Bangash
Elevation 489 m (1,604 ft)
Time zone PST (UTC+5)
Calling code +92 922
Number of Union councils 31

Kohat (Pashto: کوهاټ, Urdu: کوہاٹ), is a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is the capital of the Kohat District. The town centers on a British-era fort, various bazaars and a military cantonment. A British-built narrow gauge railway line runs through the town.

Kohat Tehsil gate in 1919
The first Mughal Emperor Babur in Kohat.

Geography

Kohat city is located at an altitude of 489 metres (1,604 ft).[1] Kohat Pass lies to the north. It is situated on the left bank of the Toi river at a point where after running nearly due east for 50 miles (80 km), it turns to the south. The total area of the district is 2,545 square kilometres (983 sq mi)

Tanda lake
Tanda lake in monsoon

Tanda Wildlife Park

Tanda Wildlife Park is located near Kohat city. The total area of the park is 2800 acres, consisting of Tanda reservoir and its catchments in Kohat. This is the largest wildlife park of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . Its wonderfully rich and varied landscape supports a range of mammals and birds, both migratory and indigenous, as well as a few reptiles.

The park is bounded by three different villages, Bar, Kaghazi, and Tanda Banda. The park is approachable by Hangu-kaghazi metallic road, shahpur-Bar road which is 18 km from Kohat.

The local people do not have any right of grazing, lopping or firewood collection as the ownership lies with the provincial government. The park area falls in the natural habitat of urial and chinkara, and also provides suitable habitat to hog deer. The urial is associated with scrub forest of Olea species and Accassia species. Urial were once abundant in the area but due to continuous habitat destruction these were disappeared from the area in the near past. The natural habitat of urial and chinkara lies in close proximity of human habitation.[2]

Kotal Pheasantry

Kotal Pheasantry is established in Kotal wildlife park in district Kohat over an area of 1 kanal, with an objective to propagate and provide breeding environment to exotic/indigenous wildlife species like silver pheasant, golden pheasant, reeves pheasant, pea-cock etc. About 20-30 visitors including students and general public visit the pheasantry for education and recreation purposes per day. There are four species of pheasants in the pheasantry including ring necked pheasant, silver pheasant, peacock pheasant and white pheasant.[3]

Railway

Construction of the railway station and railway line was started in 1897, and was completed in 1902.

Railway station in 1900

Kohat is the terminus railway station of Kohat[4]-Jand railway line and has daily train service to Rawalpindi.[5] It was also the terminus station of a narrow gauge (762 mm or 2 ft 6 in) railway line which connected it with Thall. This railway line was closed in 1991.

Air

Main article: Kohat Airbase

Kohat Airbase (IATA: OHT, ICAO: OPKT) is an Pakistan Air Force base. A small runway built by the British is in military use. PIA once used the airport using de Havilland Twin Otter, a small two engine plane.

Kohat Tunnel

The 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) Kohat Tunnel was completed in 2004,[6] and connects the southern districts, including Kohat City, to Peshawar. Constructed with Japanese assistance, it is also known as the Pak-Japan Friendship Tunnel.

Media

Medical college

Universities

Colleges

Notable people

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.