Sind

/sind/, n.

a former province of Pakistan, in the lower Indus valley; now part of West Pakistan. 48,136 sq. mi. (125,154 sq. km). Cap.: Karachi.

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or Sindh

Province (pop., 1998: 29,991,000), southeastern Pakistan.

It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the south. The capital is Karachi. The centre of the ancient Indus civilization, it was annexed to the Persian Achaemenian Empire in the 6th century BC. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 325 BC, it was part of the Mauryan empire in the 3rd century BC. It fell to the Arabs с AD 711. In the 16th–17th centuries it was ruled by the Mughals. It came under British control in 1843. After Pakistan's independence, Sind was integrated into the province of West Pakistan but in 1970 was reestablished as a separate province. It is arid except in the irrigated Indus River valley, where cotton, wheat, and rice are grown and where the population is concentrated.

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