Islamabad Islamabad Islamabad (; ) is the capital city of Pakistan, and is federally administered as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's capital, Islamabad is noted for its high standards of living, safety, and abundant greenery. With a population of 1,014,825 as per the 2017 Census, Islamabad is the 9th largest city in Pakistan, while the larger Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area is the country's third largest with a population exceeding four million. The city is the political seat of Pakistan and is administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation, supported
Islamabad is home to twenty universities, including the Quaid-e-Azam University, PIEAS, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology and NUST. The city is one of the safest in Pakistan, and has an expansive surveillance system with 1,900 CCTV cameras. The name of the city, "Islamabad", is derived from two words, "Islam" and "abad", meaning "City of Islam". "Islam" is an Arabic word which refers to the religion of Islam and "-abad" is a Persian suffix indicating an "inhabited place" or "city". Islamabad Capital Territory, located on the Pothohar Plateau of the Punjab region, is considered one of the earliest sites of human settlement