Bahawalpur: palaces at the edge of the desert

A short history

The city was founded in 1748 by Nawab Bahawal Khan I after his family came up from Sindh, replacing the desert fort at Derawar as the capital. The princely state itself was formally established in 1802.

The Nawabs ran their own affairs through the British period and built as rulers do. Noor Mahal was completed in 1875, Darbar Mahal in 1905 and Gulzar Mahal in 1909 — a run of palaces in thirty-five years that gave the city its nickname.

Bahawalpur acceded to Pakistan on 7 October 1947, one of the first states to do so.

Places worth your time

Noor Mahal

Finished in 1875 and the best known of the palaces — Italianate from the outside, and not at all what you expect at the edge of a desert.

Derawar Fort

Forty enormous bastions rising out of flat sand about an hour and a half south. It is the image people remember from Bahawalpur and it deserves to be.

Uch Sharif

An hour west, with shrines to Muslim mystics from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries and some of the finest tiled domes in Punjab, several of them half collapsed.

Lal Suhanra National Park

One of the largest national parks in South Asia, with desert, wetland and forest inside one boundary.

Bahawalpur Central Library and museum

For the state's own record of itself, which is more interesting than that sounds.

Before you go

November to February; the Cholistan is unbearable in summer. About two hours from Multan. Derawar needs a half day and a vehicle that can handle sand.