Sahiwal Division · code 0457 · the ferry that kept a saint
Pakpattan District is one of the 41 districts of Punjab, with its headquarters at Pakpattan. It has 2 tehsils: Arif Wala and Pakpattan. The 2023 census counted 2,136,170 people on 2,724 km², and 57.13% of residents aged 10 and over were literate.
| Name | Type | Population | Area (km²) | Urban | Literacy (10+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arif Wala | Tehsil | 999,278 | 1,241 | 20.97% | 58.24% |
| Pakpattan | Tehsil | 1,136,892 | 1,483 | 23.13% | 56.11% |
Ajodhan was a Sutlej crossing with a mosque already standing when Fariduddin Masud arrived from the Multan side. The town later took a new name — Pakpattan, the clean ferry. Cotton and wheat still pay the rent. The courtyard still sets the calendar.
The 2023 census counted 2,136,170 people in 344,546 households on 2,724 km². Urban 472,575. Literacy 57.13 percent — 64.70 among men, 49.27 among women. Punjabi first.
Pakpattan tehsil — 1,483 km², 1,136,892 people, literacy 56.11 percent. Headquarters and the shrine.
Arifwala — about 1,241 km², 999,278 people, literacy 58.24 percent. The mandi tehsil. Cotton and grain when the urs cameras have gone home.
Baba Farid (d. 1265) settled here in the Chishti line. His Punjabi sloks later entered the Guru Granth Sahib; Guru Nanak came, the tradition says, to collect them. The shrine holds the door called Bahishti Darwaza, open the first five days of Muharram. Ibn Battuta passed in 1334. Tughluq governors brought sons for a turban-tying. Akbar visited. Ranjit Singh sent gifts.
Sahiwal Division cotton-and-wheat country. The Maneka name keeps returning on assembly rolls — Ahmad Raza Maneka and earlier seats. The Faridi house around the dargah is a different office, older than the gazette.
DHQ at headquarters, THQ at Arifwala. Serious medicine still means Sahiwal or Lahore. Women here still read at just under half.
Census 2023. Shrine notes from the published Chishti record.
The 7th Population and Housing Census (2023) by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) counted 2,136,170 people in Pakpattan District — 1,085,316 males and 1,050,694 females (sex ratio 103.30 males per 100 females). The 2017 census had counted 1,824,228, so the district gained 311,942 people in six years (difference calculated from the two PBS totals), an average annual growth rate of 2.67%. The district covers 2,724 km², giving a density of 784.20 people per km²; 22.12% of residents live in urban areas and the average household has 6.1 members.
| Tehsil / area | 2017 | 2023 | Annual growth % | Area km² | Density /km² | Sex ratio | Household size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arif Wala Tehsil | 855,029 | 999,278 | 2.64 | 1,241 | 805.22 | 102.92 | 6.2 |
| Pakpattan Tehsil | 969,199 | 1,136,892 | 2.70 | 1,483 | 766.62 | 103.63 | 6.1 |
PBS reports a literacy rate (age 10+) of 57.13% for Pakpattan District: 64.70% for males and 49.27% for females, 71.12% in urban areas against 53.00% in rural areas. Of 1,521,954 residents aged 10 and over, 869,422 were literate. The census also counted 176,009 children aged 5–16 who were out of school (84,572 boys and 91,429 girls).
| Tehsil / area | Literacy % | Male % | Female % | Urban % | Rural % | Out-of-school (5–16) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arif Wala Tehsil | 58.24 | 65.54 | 50.67 | 70.84 | 54.80 | 82,310 |
| Pakpattan Tehsil | 56.11 | 63.93 | 47.99 | 71.35 | 51.32 | 93,699 |
PBS Table 2 lists 4 urban localities in the district (MC = municipal committee, TC = town committee):
Source: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Census 2023 — Table 1, Table 2, Table 12. Figures checked against the PBS tables on 2026-10-07.
Pakpattan District has 2 tehsils: Arif Wala and Pakpattan.
The 2023 census counted 2,136,170 people in Pakpattan District, up from 1,824,228 in 2017 (annual growth 2.67%). 22.12% of the population lived in urban areas.
Pakpattan District covers 2,724 km² according to the 2023 census, a density of 784.2 people per km².
The 2023 census lists 4 urban localities in Pakpattan District: Pakpattan (221,280, municipal committee), Arif Wala (157,063, municipal committee), Qabula (52,495, town committee) and Malka Hans (41,737, town committee).
57.13% of people aged 10 and over were literate in the 2023 census (male 64.7%, female 49.27%).
The most common mother tongue in the 2023 census was Punjabi (95.42% of the 2,135,511 people in the mother-tongue table), followed by Urdu (3.5%).
Pakpattan District is in Punjab. Its headquarters is Pakpattan.