Historically, the Arain community was concentrated in territory that is now part of Indian Punjab, especially the Jalandhar Doab. According to 1911 Census of India, the highest concentrations of Arains was in the Kapurthala State, where they accounted for 16% of the population, and neighbouring Jalandhar District, where they formed 15% (about one third of the Muslim population) of the population. By the late 19th Century, the Arain were encouraged by the British colonial authorities to settle in the new canal colonies in the Sandal Bar and Neeli Bar regions, and by 1911 Arain formed 12% of the population of Lyalpur District and 7% of Montgommery District. Other districts with large Arain populations were Lahore (10%), Gurdaspur (7%), Ferozepur (6%), Gujranwala, Sialkot (6%) and Multan (5%).[14] In the Phulkhian States, Hoshiarpur, Karnal, Delhi and Hissar they formed less than five percentage of the population. North and west of the Jhelum, they were practically absent in the Pothohar region, the Salt Range and the Thal Dessert, where their place was and still taken by the Maliar caste. Those few Arains who were found in this region are often treated as sub-tribe of the Jats.[14] In essence the Arain were found in territory stretching from the Chenab in the west to the Sultlej in the east, in what was the Punjabi speaking heartland of the British colonial province of Punjab. This was also the region that suffered the worst violence during the partition of India in 1947, with almost the entire Arain population of Indian Punjab migrating to Pakistani territory. However, there are still a small number of Muslim Arains still found in Malerkotla, Sangrur and Patiala districts.[15]
The bulk of the Arain population is now settled in the districts of Faisalabad, Sahiwal and Toba Tek Singh,[16][full citation needed] with a large number of refugees settled by the Thal Development Authority in the districts of Khushab, Mianwali, Bhakkar and Layyah
