Islamabad

Islamabad was laid out from 1960 as a purpose-built capital to replace Karachi, on a grid of numbered sectors drawn by the Greek planner Constantinos Doxiadis, and it is the quietest and greenest large city in Pakistan. The Faisal Mosque stands at the head of it, a white tent of concrete holding a hundred thousand people, and it was the largest mosque in the world when it opened. The Margalla Hills rise straight out of the northern sectors with walking trails and the Daman-e-Koh terrace looking back over the city. Rawalpindi's older bazaars sit fifteen kilometres south. The city has no station of its own and uses Rawalpindi's, nine kilometres south.