Abbottabad, named after British military officer Major James Abbott during the colonial era, Abbottabad is the third biggest city in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, known as the North-West Frontier Province until last year. It is the biggest city in Hazara division, where the majority of its 130,000-strong population speak Hindko language unlike the rest of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in which Pashtuns are the biggest ethnic group.
The Karakoram Highway, located on the old Silk Route, starts from Havelian town in Abbottabad and moves on to Gilgit-Baltistan before linking Pakistan with China at the Khunjerab Pass. The cities closest to Abbottabad are Rawalpindi-Islamabad in the south, Muzaffarabad in the east, Mansehra in the north and Haripur and Tarbela Dam in the west.
Besides its schools and colleges, Abbottabad is famous as a military town. But it has acquired a new notoriety now — as the place where the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, found refuge during the last few years of his life.
The political significance of Abbottabad can be gauged from the fact that former PM Nawaz Sharif won the National Assembly election from the district twice. Other important politicians from the area include Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan, the former CM of the province, former federal minister Amanullah Khan Jadoon, former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob and Sardar Haider Zaman, the founder of the Hazara province movement.
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