Balochistan

Mehrgarh, at the foot of the Bolan Pass, is one of the earliest farming settlements in South Asia and a forerunner of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The region lay on the fringes of Persian empires, and in 325 BC Alexander the Great led part of his army back from India across the Gedrosian desert of the Makran, losing many men to thirst and heat. Arab armies passed through on their way to Sindh in the early 8th century.

The Baloch, speakers of an Iranian language, spread through the region in the medieval period alongside the Brahui, whose language is Dravidian. From the 17th century the Khanate of Kalat united many tribes, reaching its height under Nasir Khan I in the 18th century. The British, securing routes to Afghanistan, took Quetta and the Bolan Pass in the 19th century and made Quetta a garrison town; an earthquake destroyed it in 1935, killing tens of thousands.

Kalat's accession to Pakistan in 1948 was disputed from the start, and Baloch nationalists have rebelled several times since, most seriously in the 1970s and again since the early 2000s, especially after the army killed the tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006. Pakistan bought Gwadar from Oman in 1958 and tested its nuclear weapons in the Chagai hills in 1998. Chinese investment in Gwadar port under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor has sharpened Baloch grievances over who benefits from the province's gas and minerals, and enforced disappearances of activists are a major issue.

Balochi is spoken across the south and west, Brahui in the central highlands around Kalat, and Pashto in the north around Quetta, Pishin and Zhob, and Quetta also has a large Hazara community who speak Hazaragi Persian. Society is organised by tribe, and the tribal chiefs, or sardars, still hold great power.

The Baloch code of honour stresses hospitality, the protection of guests and loyalty to the tribe. Baloch women's dresses carry dense, colourful mirrored embroidery on a large front pocket and the cuffs, and Baloch men wear very loose shalwar with long shirts and turbans. Music is carried by the suroz, a bowed string instrument, and sung epics of tribal heroes.

The Hindu cave shrine of Hinglaj Mata in Hingol draws large crowds of pilgrims, above all in spring, and Sufi shrines are respected across the province. Baloch Culture Day is celebrated each March with music, dress and dancing.

Balochistan covers roughly 44 per cent of Pakistan's land but holds only about 15 million people. Quetta, with about 1.7 million, is the only large city; Turbat, Khuzdar, Hub, Chaman and Gwadar are the other main towns, and much of the rest is scattered villages and herding camps.

Despite natural gas from Sui, copper and gold at Saindak and Reko Diq, and coal, the province is the poorest in Pakistan, with the lowest literacy rates and many villages lacking clean water and electricity. People live by herding, fishing on the coast, date and fruit farming, cross-border trade with Iran and Afghanistan, and work in the Gulf.

Life is shaped by insecurity, frequent road closures and internet shutdowns, and by chronic water shortages. Quetta's bazaars and tea houses stay busy, but checkpoints are everywhere.

The signature Balochi dish is sajji: a whole lamb or chicken, lightly salted, skewered and roasted slowly beside an open fire until the fat renders, served with rice or bread. Kaak is a thick bread baked around a hot stone. In the Pashtun north, landi, meat salted and dried in the sun, is cooked with rice.

Quetta is famous for its tea houses, where strong, milky tea is poured through the day, and for Afghan-style pulao and tandoor breads. Its orchards have earned it the name "Fruit Garden of Pakistan", and the Makran grows dates. On the coast, fishing towns such as Pasni and Gwadar eat grilled and curried fish, prawns and lobster.

The Makran coast is the most striking landscape. The Makran Coastal Highway runs west from the Sindh border through Hingol National Park, where wind and rain have carved clay cliffs into shapes known as the Princess of Hope and the Sphinx, mud volcanoes such as Chandragup bubble on the plain, and Kund Malir's wide beach meets the sea. Further on are the fishing ports of Ormara and Pasni, with the turtle-nesting island of Astola offshore, and then Gwadar, whose town sits on a sandy isthmus beneath the Koh-e-Batil headland, with the new deep-water port beside it.

Inland, Quetta has its bazaars, Hanna Lake and the Hazarganji-Chiltan National Park, a refuge for wild goats including the markhor. A few hours to the north-east, Ziarat's juniper forests, with trees thousands of years old, surround the Quaid-e-Azam Residency, rebuilt after separatists attacked it in 2013. The Bolan Pass, the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh near Sibi and the old seat of the khans at Kalat complete the picture, though many of these places are off limits to foreigners.