Belonging to a country is reason enough to be proud of it. However, for those who still need to be reminded of reasons to be a proud Pakistani, here are some things that worth being pleased about:
• Pakistan came into existence on 27th Ramazan, the most sacred day of the Holy month
• Pakistan is the second most populous Muslim country in the world, next only to Indonesia
• The 62-kilometre-long Baltoro Glacier, in northern Pakistan, is one of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions
• Pakistan has as many as six major cultural sites that are categorised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These include:
Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro of the Indus Valley Civilisation; First Century Buddhist ruins at Takht-i-Bahi and neighbouring city remains at Sahr-i-Bahlol; The ruins of Taxila from the Gandhara Civilisation; The Lahore Fort and Shalimar
Gardens in Lahore; Historic monuments of the ancient city of Thatta; The ancient fort of Rohtas.
• Pakistan has five out of 14 mountain peaks of height over 8,000 metres (26,250 ft), that attract adventurers and mountaineers from around the world, especially the second highest mountain peak in the world — K2, aka Godwin Austin
• Pakistan is the only country to have won a Test match in its inaugural series against all major Test playing nations
• Pakistan reached the final of the inaugural cricket World Cup of Twenty20 and won the second edition in 2009
• Pakistan has won the hockey World Cup a record four times (1971, 1978, 1982, 1994)
• Our very own Jahangir Khan is the only squash player to have won as many as 10 British Open Championships enjoys an
unbeaten streak of 555 weeks without losing a match, the most impressive unbeaten run by any athlete, in any sport
• Aisam ul Haq, the fourth-ranked player in men’s double’s tennis is a Pakistani
• Pakistan has produced the greatest left-arm fast bowler in the world (Wasim Akram), the greatest all-rounder (Imran Khan) and one of the best finishers of the game (Javed Miandad)
• Pakistan won the only World Cup that was played on single-league basis in 1992
• Pakistani student Ali Moeen Nawazish holds the world record for passing A-levels with 21 As
• Late pop singer Nazia Hasan won the coveted Filmfare Award for Best Playback Singer for her song Aap Jaisa Koi when she
was still a teenager in 1980!
• In 1979, our great Dr Abdus Salam won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the electroweak unification of the
electromagnetic and weak forces
• We have the world’s largest privately owned ambulance charity service — Edhi Ambulance Services
• Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar holds the world record for the highest electronically measured speed for a ball bowled. He bowled a delivery at 161.3 km/h (100.23 mph) against England during the World Cup in 2003
• A group of 19 Pakistani girls hold the world record for most people crammed into a smart car
• The fastest century in any form of international cricket was scored by Shahid Afridi in 1996 when he blasted 102 runs off just
37 balls against Sri Lanka
• Master batsman Hanif Mohammad still holds the record for the longest individual Test innings, of 337 runs, batting for 16
hours and 10 minutes against the West Indies in 1958
• Pakistan hockey player Sohail Abbas holds the world record for scoring more than 300 goals in international matches
• No player has scored more goals in hockey in a year (60) than Sohail Abbas who did so in 1999— OA
