Pakistan, is a country is the world's fifth-most populous country with a population exceeding. It is the 33rd-largest country by area, spanning 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman..

The name Pakistan literally means "land of the pure" in Urdu and Persian. It alludes to the word Pak meaning "pure" in Persian and Pashto.