Okaraਓਕਾੜਾ

Okara is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, and the capital of Okara District in Sahiwal Division. Named after the Okaan tree whose forests once covered the area, it grew from a British-era railway settlement into an agricultural and dairy powerhouse. The 2023 census counted 533,693 people, making it the 20th largest city of Pakistan, famous for its military dairy farms, cotton mills and the Sahiwal cattle breed.

Where is Okara?

Okara sits southwest of Lahore in Pakistan's Punjab, in Sahiwal Division, with Kasur to its east and its nearest major city, Sahiwal, close by. Faisalabad lies about 100 kilometres away across the Ravi. The city stands on the N-5 highway corridor and has had a railway station since 1892.

History

Okara is a young city by Punjab's standards. During British rule the site was a forest of Okaan trees, a lush green tree with needle-like leaves, and the settlement that grew there took the name Okanwali, land of Okan, which became Okara. The area was then part of Montgomery District and held a large saltpetre refinery. The railway arrived in 1892, and the canals followed: the Lower Bari Doab Canal from the Ravi in 1913, and later the Depalpur and Pakpattan canals, turned barren land into irrigated farmland.

At the partition of 1947, Muslim refugees settled in the Okara area, and one of the two textile mills that Pakistan inherited, the Sutlej textile mill, stood here: at the time it was counted among the biggest textile mills in Asia, though it has since closed. The Pakistan military's dairy farms at Okara, famous across the country for their cheese, were established before independence. In 1982 Okara became the headquarters of the newly created Okara District, separated from Sahiwal.

Geography & people

Okara lies in the fertile plain between the Ravi and the Sutlej, at about 105 metres above sea level. The climate is warm and dry outside the summer monsoon of June to September. The hottest months, May to July, can reach 45 degrees Celsius, while December to February nights can fall to 3 degrees. Annual rainfall averages about 615 millimetres.

The 2023 census counted 533,693 people in the city, up from 357,935 in 2017, making Okara the 20th largest city in Pakistan. Punjabi is the mother tongue of about 86 percent of residents, with Urdu at near 13 percent, and the local Punjabi runs to the Majhi and Jhangvi dialects. Okara with Pakpattan, Sahiwal, Khanewal, Vehari and Multan together grows more than 60 percent of Pakistan's potato harvest.

Places of interest

Okara's best-known sights are working ones. The military dairy farms, pre-partition institutions famous for their cheese, and the huge Livestock Production Research Institute farm at Bahadar Nagar, about 14 kilometres out on the Faisalabad road, show why the district is a livestock capital. It is the home ground of the Sahiwal cattle breed and the Nili-Ravi buffalo, and Mitchel's farms at nearby Renala Khurd are another landmark name.

In the city itself, the railway station dates to the town's founding years, Company Bagh is a well-known public garden, and the shrine of Khoo Pak draws devotees. Safdar Shaheed Park and Jinnah Park are the main city parks. The Satluj and Ravi rivers and the canal network around Hujra Shah Muqeem and Satghara make for easy countryside excursions.

Getting there

Okara has been on the railway map since 1892 and remains well connected by rail. By road it sits southwest of Lahore toward Sahiwal and Multan on the N-5 corridor, with Faisalabad about 100 kilometres away bypassing the Ravi. Inside the city, rickshaws, taxis and vans handle local travel.

Today

Today Okara is an agricultural-industrial city of more than half a million people. Its economy runs on cotton ginning and textiles, dairy and livestock, and the trade in potatoes, rice, maize and cotton. The district jail, a 52-acre facility opened in 2015, and the district's ten union councils in the city proper reflect its administrative weight. Between the dairy farms, the cotton mills and the canal-fed fields, Okara remains what it has always been: a working city that feeds and clothes far beyond its borders.