History of Islamabad their way to invade the Indian Subcontinent. A Buddhist town once existed in the region and remains of a stupa have been identified in the G-12 sector. Modern Islamabad also incorporates the old settlement of Saidpur. The British took control of the region from the Sikhs in 1849 and built Asia's largest cantonment in the region in Rawalpindi. When Pakistan gained independence in 1947, Karachi was its first capital. In 1960, Islamabad was constructed as a forward capital. It is considered by some as one of the most extensively and successfully planned cities in South Asia. History of Islamabad The
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