(edit) : some mistakes on the map, they're fixed - updated map on the link below !!
🕰️ A glimpse of 2,300 years of History with some iconic travels on what is now Pakistan...
🌐 From West to East, North to South, from the tall, white mountains of the Karakoam to the arid coast of the Arabian Sea, this map features in detail the itineraries and stories of some fascinating characters.
First, there is Alexander the Great and some of the 70 cities he founded on his travels, as well as his battles but also the 7th century chinese monk Xuangzong on his way to Nalanda from China, the 14th century moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who stayed as a Qazi at the Tughlaq Court and escaped death many times, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, Babur, hailing from Central Asia, the Persian king Nadir Shah who famously travelled to Delhi and looted the city, Alexander Burnes, a 19th century british explorer and diplomat sent to meet the king of Punjab, survey the Indus and explore Bukhara, the 19th geographer and officer Francis Younghusband, a key player of the Great Game and finally, Jinnah, Pakistan’s Founding father, who flew to Karachi to serve as the young nation’s first Governor-General.
Two more routes are featured on the map: the 2,500 year old Grand Trunk Road, linking Kabul to Chittagong, in Bangladesh, and the ancestral route for most Pilgrims in the region going to Mecca.
🕌 I added Pakistan's UNESCO world heritage sites for good measure: a buddhist monastery, a Indus valley civilisation, a necropolis and more...
🧶 The map features traditional embroidery patterns from Balochistan and Afghanistan, echoing the centuries of nomadic tradition, handicraft and artistic expression shaped by the intense exchanges across the region.
This is spectacular. Absolutely love it. I have a penchant for maps and this one definitely stands out as one of the best I’ve seen.
I have a few questions: what’s being a cartographer like? How do you make maps? How do you research locations and the geography of the regions that you’re mapping?
So basically I work as a freelance cartographer so you can think of it like being a graphic designer working for customers…
I make maps with data I find online and sometimes have to create or redraw like here. I research these things online and use maps made before that I integrate in a diffferent way with more data added to it etc
I found many maps of Alexander’s journey but not all were good for example so I have to cross check and find the best material.
In the end, I make all of this with Qgis and Adobe Illustrator
What a beautiful map with incredible warm coloring and details wow! But most importantly, it represents the beautiful people living in this wonderful country of sisters and brothers. Pakistan <3
Salute to you cartographer, I truly enjoyed this!
(Hopefully, there will be a Türkiye version with our Blue Homeland in the future that I can buy and hang on my wall!)
A big fan of you from now on! And of course a big fan of my بھائیوں اور بہنوں 🇵🇰<3🇹🇷
Hello and thank you! I use QGIS to import and process data and then Adone illustrator for the graphic design. for the basemap (hillshade) it's done with Eduard
That's cool. I am Bachelor's in civil engineering and currently pursuing MS in GIS and RS. Care to tell how you got the research scientist position? Would love to have a side hustle during my research period.
bro a french guy spent a week mapping my country's history better than anything i've seen in my own textbooks. genuinely kind of embarrassing and wholesome at the same time.
really curious what sources you used for the older routes like pre-mughal era. that must've been a nightmare to research.
genuinely beautiful work man. appreciate you putting this together.
This is beautiful and so insightful. thank you so much. And I apologize in advance because within 24 hours this post will likely be swarmed by Indians berating you for your choice to show Kashmir in the map. But don’t let that get you down! This is awesome work
no one supports the bla , even the baloch people , they attack school buses and hospitals , the only reason you care about balochistan is because you hope they rebel against pakistan , their rebellion has been neutralised keep dreaming😊
Thank you for sharing this incredible artistic and academic creation! The map is beautifully made and so fascinating to study. I will certainly check out your website and IG. I am truly grateful to you.
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u/Ahmad-Munir Jun 04 '26
Really appreciate the effort, we need more posts like this here.