Geography of Islamabad is located on the Haro River near the town of Khanpur, about from Islamabad. Simli Dam is located north of Islamabad. of the city consists of Margalla Hills National Park. Loi Bher Forest is situated along the Islamabad Highway, covering an area of . Geography of Islamabad Islamabad is located at at the edge of the Pothohar Plateau at the foot of the Margalla Hills in Islamabad Capital Territory. Its elevation is . The modern capital and the ancient Gakhar city of Rawalpindi stand side by side and are commonly referred to as the Twin Cities. To the east of
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