Mardan Division

Mardan Division is one of the seven divisions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It consists of two districts: Mardan and Swabi. The division borders Hazara Division, Malakand Division, and Peshawar Division. CNIC code of Mardan Division is 16.

List of the Districts

Districts are the administrative unit one level below divisions in the administrative hierarchy of Pakistan. Mardan Division consists of the following two districts: Mardan and Swabi.

#	District	Headquarter	Area (km²)	Pop. (2023)	Density (ppl/km²) (2023)	Lit. rate (2023)
1	Swabi	Swabi	1,543	1,894,600	1,228.0	58.48%
2	Mardan	Mardan	1,632	2,744,898	1,681.4	55.79%

List of the Tehsils

#	Tehsil	Area (km²)	Pop. (2023)	Density (ppl/km²) (2023)	Lit. rate (2023)	Districts
1	Garhi Kapura Tehsil	143	319,465	2,234.02	51.70%	Mardan District
2	Katlang Tehsil	422	377,535	894.63	61.47%
3	Mardan Tehsil	335	1,040,893	3,107.14	56.41%
4	Rustam Tehsil	379	279,527	737.54	49.98%
5	Takht Bhai Tehsil	353	727,478	2,060.84	56.02%
6	Lahor Tehsil	318	354,383	1,114.41	54.16%	Swabi District
7	Razar Tehsil	418	682,303	1,632.30	56.61%
8	Swabi Tehsil	389	475,352	1,221.98	63.23%
9	Topi Tehsil	418	382,562	915.22	59.83%

History

The area which covers Mardan Division today was carved out of the Peshawar District between the 1931 and 1941 censuses of the British India. The newly demarcated area was a Trans-Indus district designated as the Mardan District. The district comprised two tehsils initially, Mardan Tehsil and Swabi Tehsil, which later evolved to become two districts that forms today's Mardan Division.

This setup continued until One Unit, a geopolitical policy that abolished the provinces making up West Pakistan and consolidated West Pakistan into one province. Following the conclusion of the One Unit policy ended in 1970 and the subsequent reinstatement of the original provincial structure, the divisions that emerged during the policy period remained in the North-West Frontier Province. Thus, the Mardan District was situated within the Peshawar Division.

The area received full-fledged division status between the Pakistani censuses of 1981 and 1998, and during the same time period, Swabi Tehsil was also upgraded, to district status (becoming Swabi District).

In August 2000, the division was abolished along with every other division in the country, but was reinstated (with all the other divisions of Pakistan) eight years later after the elections of 2008.

Geography

Mardan Division has a total area of . The area of the division is split rather evenly across both districts, with Mardan District taking up 51.4% of the area of the division (), and Swabi District takes up the remaining .

The division borders the important Indus River to its south and east, and has an abundance of natural beauty.

Surrounding areas

To Mardan Division's north and northwest, you will find Malakand Division, to the division's west and southwest, Peshawar Division can be found. To the southeast of Mardan Division, Rawalpindi Division in the province of Punjab can be found, and Mardan Division borders the Hazara Division to its east.

Demographics

As of the 2023 Census of Pakistan, the division had a population of 4,639,498 roughly equal to the country of Ireland or the US state of Louisiana or Chinese province of Jilin.

The largest city in Mardan Division is its namesake, Mardan. Mardan had a population of 358,604 in 2017 and was the second-largest city in the entire province (after Peshawar) at the time. Swabi was the second-largest city in the division, and it had a population of 123,412 and was the eighth-largest city in the province. The next three most-populous cities in the division were Takht-i-Bahi, in the Mardan District, with a population of 80,721, Topi, in the Swabi District, with a population of 52,983, and Tordher, also in the Swabi District, with a population of 41,420. The whole division had seven municipalities in 2017, with five of them being concentrated in the Swabi District.

The division has one cantonment, the Mardan Cantonment, adjacent to the city of Mardan which had a population of 6,871, making up the division's entire military population. This made only 0.17% of the entire population of the division active military personnel (one of the smallest military-civilian ratios in all of Pakistan).

In 2014 - 2015, Mardan Division had a literacy rate of roughly 51%, below the national average of 60%, and just below the provincial average of 53%.

Religious groups in Mardan Division (British North-West Frontier Province era)

Religious group	1911		1921		1931		1941
	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%
Islam File:Star and Crescent.svg	293,695		316,842		341,109		483,575
Hinduism File:Om.svg	7,344		9,909		7,367		10,677
Sikhism File:Khanda.svg	5,889		3,936		8,204		11,838
Christianity File:Christian cross.svg	126		197		292		449
Jainism File:Jain Prateek Chihna.svg	1		0		0		0
Zoroastrianism File:Faravahar.svg	1		0		0		0
Buddhism File:Dharma Wheel (2).svg	0		0		0		0
Judaism File:Star of David.svg	0		0		0		0
Others	0		0		0		0
Total population	307,056		330,884		356,972		506,539
Note: British North-West Frontier Province era figures are for Mardan District, which roughly corresponds to present-day Mardan Division.

Climate

The climate of Mardan Division varies depending on where you are in the division. In the western part of the division, towards Mardan District and the city of Mardan, the summers are hot, the winters are mild and dry, and little rainfall falls through the year. Here the climate is classified as a BSh (or a hot semi-arid climate) by the Köppen climate classification. In the eastern part of the division, towards Swabi District and the city of Swabi, the summers are hot and long but the winters are dry and cool. Here the climate is classified as a Cwa (or a humid subtropical climate) by the Köppen classification.

Constituencies

Provincial Assembly Constituency	National Assembly Constituency	District
PK-49 Swabi-I	NA-19 Swabi-I	Swabi
PK-50 Swabi-II
PK-51 Swabi-III
PK-52 Swabi-IV	NA-20 Swabi-II
PK-53 Swabi-V
PK-54 Mardan-I	NA-21 Mardan-I	Mardan
PK-55 Mardan-II
PK-56 Mardan-III	NA-22 Mardan-II
PK-57 Mardan-IV
PK-58 Mardan-V
PK-59 Mardan-VI	NA-23 Mardan-III
PK-60 Mardan-VII
PK-61 Mardan-VIII

See also

• Divisions of Pakistan
• Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Bannu Division
  • Dera Ismail Khan Division
  • Hazara Division
  • Kohat Division
  • Malakand Division
  • Peshawar Division
• Mardan District
  • Mardan
• Swabi District
  • Swabi
• Administrative units of Pakistan
• Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa