Jacobabad

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Jacobabad جيڪب آباد
City
Jacobabad Junction railway station
Jacobabad Location within Pakistan Jacobabad Jacobabad (Pakistan) Show map of SindhShow map of PakistanShow all
Coordinates: 28°16′37″N 68°27′05″E / 28.27694°N 68.45139°E / 28.27694; 68.45139Coordinates: 28°16′37″N 68°27′05″E / 28.27694°N 68.45139°E / 28.27694; 68.45139
Country	Pakistan
Province	Sindh
Division	Larkana
District	Jacobabad
Founded	1847
Population  (2017)[1]
• City	191,076
• Rank	43rd in Pakistan
Time zone	UTC+5 (PST)

Jacobabad (Sindhi and Urdu: جيڪب آباد‎; formerly Khanger or Khangarh) is a city in Sindh, Pakistan, serving as both the capital city of Jacobabad District and the administrative center of Jacobabad Taluka, an administrative subdivision of the district. The city itself is subdivided into eight Union Councils. Sitting far to the northwest of the province, near the provincial boundaries of Sindh and Balochistan, Jacobabad became a city on the site of an existing village (Khangarh), and is crossed by the Pakistan Railways and many main roads of the province. It is the 43rd most populous city in Pakistan.

The city is one of the hottest places on earth, with summer temperatures regularly rising to a mean temperature of 37 °C (99 °F).^[2] In particular, compounded by the humidity and climate change, Jacobabad has been the site exceeding a wet-bulb temperature of 35C a temperature where human bodies can no longer cool themselves.^[3]

Founder[]

Brigadier-General John Jacob CB (11 January 1812 – 6 December 1858) was an officer of the British East India Company who served in colonial India for the major portion of his career. He is known for the cavalry regiment called 36th Jacob's Horse, and for founding the town of Jacobabad, in modern day Pakistan, where he planned and supervised the transformation of thousands of acres of desert into arable land over the course of twenty years. The scale of progress and prosperity his works brought to the region can be appreciated by comparing those regions' relative prosperity compared to areas which were not under his administrative jurisdiction.^[4] He was born at Woolavington, in the county of Somerset, England, where his father the Reverend Stephen Long Jacob was incumbent.^[5] His mother was Susanna, daughter of the Reverend James Bond of Ashford, Kent, England.^[6] He was schooled by his father until he obtained his cadetship to Addiscombe Military Seminary.^[7] A number of the young cadets there who were his contemporaries, included such famous officers as Eldred Pottinger, Robert Cornelis Napier, Henry Mortimer Durand, Vincent Eyre and others.^[8] He was commissioned into the Bombay Artillery (Bombay Army) on his 16th birthday, and subsequently sailed for India in January 1828, never to set foot in England again.

Transforming the Village of Khangarh to City of Jacobabad[]

In 1847 Jacob was placed in political charge of the frontier and established his headquarters at Khangurh. At the time he set foot on there, the area was known as Upper Sind 'desert', littered with marauders who looted for living. At the first place he restored peace in the area by thoroughly defeating the predator tribes. Then he started building infrastructure for the town, (at the village of Khangurh and its surroundings). Being an architect and an engineer himself, he designed and then executed the plans of laying a wide road network around the town that measured a good 600 miles (965 km). In that he resolved the problem of unavailability of potable water for the residents by excavating a tank that contained water brought from Indus through a canal. His biggest and most important feat was the excavation of Begaree Canal, originating from Guddu barrage on river Indus, going round the district irrigating thousands of acres of land previously uncultivated, thereby providing means of living to thousands of people.^[9]

History[]

During British rule, as part of British Raj, the town of Khanger which was renamed to Jacobabad in honor of British Administrator John Jacob, was the administrative headquarters of the Upper Sind Frontier District of the Bombay Presidency, with a station on the Quetta branch of the North-Western Railway. After the British Raj the city was ruled by a Sardar, Taj Dero Khan Odho. The city also became well known for consistently having the highest temperature in South Asia, and has a mean summer temperature of 37 °C (99 °F).^[2]

In November 2010, then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani announced that University of Information Technology would be established in Jacobabad.^[10]

Climate[]

Jacobabad has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with extremely hot summers and mild winters. The highest recorded temperature is 52.8 °C (127.0 °F), and the lowest recorded temperature is −3.9 °C (25.0 °F). Rainfall is low and mainly occurs in the monsoon season (July–September). The average annual rainfall of Jacobabad is 122.5 mm as per 1991-2020 period. The highest annual rainfall ever is 504.9 mm, recorded in 2012, and the lowest annual rainfall ever is 3.3 mm, recorded in 1922.

Airport and airbase[]

The commercial airport at Jacobabad, about 500 kilometres (300 mi) north of Karachi and 500 km (300 mi) southeast of Kandahar, is located on the border between Sindh and Balochistan provinces. The Shahbaz Air Base (co-located with the commercial airport in Jacobabad) was one of three Pakistani air bases used by U.S. and allied forces to support the Operation Enduring Freedom campaign in Afghanistan and reportedly ongoing drone strikes in North Western Pakistan tribal regions.^[12]

References[]