Mingora facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mingora مینګورہ مینگورہ
City
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Mingora Location in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Show map of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mingora Location in Pakistan Show map of Pakistan
Country	Pakistan
Province	Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Division	Malakand
District	Swat
Tehsil	Babuzai
Elevation	984 m (3,228 ft)
Population  (2017)
• City	331,091
• Rank	26th, Pakistan; 3rd, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Time zone	UTC+5 (PST)
Calling code	(0946)
Website	Mingora

Mingora (Pashto: مینګورہ, Romanised: Minga Wara) is a city in the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Located on the Swat River, it is the 3rd largest city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the 26th largest in Pakistan. Mingora is the largest city and the epicenter of social, cultural, and economic activities in Malakand Division, and also the largest in the northern part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

History

The area around Mingora has long been inhabited. At Loe Banr, Butkara II and Matalai, Italian archaeologists unearthed 475 Indo-Aryan graves dated between 1520 and 170 BC and two horse skeletons. On the opposite side of the River Swat at Aligrama, near the Saidu Sharif airport, a site of Gandhara grave culture was discovered by Italian archaeologists and dated to 1000 BC.

Buddhism arose in the region with the arrival of monks from the Gangetic plains. Under Emperor Ashoka, Buddhism became firmly established in the region, and the region became a launching ground for Ashoka's expansion of Buddhist missionaries to the western regions from the Mediterranean and West Asia. Many Buddhist remains and carvings have been discovered near Mingora in the Jambil River Valley. At Panr, a stupa and monastery dated to the 1st century CE has been excavated. In Mingora, Faxian claimed to have seen the biggest Buddhist monastery, and large carving of the foot-prints of Buddha carved on the sides of the ridges at Teerat. Excavations at the Butkara Stupa near Mingora revealed a large and imposing central stupa surrounded by more than 200 votive stupas which were discovered by Pakistani archeologist in the 20th century.

Following the collapse of Buddhist rule, direct control of the area came under the Hindu Shahis. Their rule marked the assent of Hinduism and Hindu polity in the region once again, after centuries of Buddhist rule and domination of the area. Their rule came to an end with the rise of the Islamic empire of Mahmud Ghazni.

In 2007 during the rise of the Taliban insurgency, Mingora was invaded by the Taliban, largely impacting traditional culture in Mingora.

Most of the city's income comes from treads and tourism. The people of the uplands mostly pay attention to Mingora for buying and selling which includes Dir, Shangla,

The Operation Rah-e-Raast in 2009 placed Mingora back into Pakistani control.

Climate

The city occasionally experiences thunderstorms

Mingora technically features a mediterranean climate (Csa) under the Köppen climate classification because June only receives 31ml of rain, even though the rest of summer is quite wet . The average annual temperature in Mingora is 19.3 °C, while the annual precipitation averages 897  mm. November is the driest month with 22  mm of precipitation, while August, the wettest month, has an average precipitation of 134  mm.

June is the hottest month of the year with an average temperature of 29.2 °C. The coldest month January has an average temperature of 7.6 °C.

Notable people

• Nazia Iqbal (born c. 1984), singer
• Ghazala Javed (1988–2012), singer
• Nasirul Mulk (born 1950), politician and former Chief Justice of Pakistan
• Malala Yousafzai (born 1997), Nobel Prize laureate, female education activist