Sudhanoti District

District in Azad Jammu and Kashmir From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sudhanoti (also called Sudhnoti,^[4] Urdu: سدھنوتی) is one of the 10 districts of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.^[1]^[5]^[6] The Sudhanoti District is bounded on the north and east by the Poonch District,^[7] on the south by the Kotli District, and on the west by the Rawalpindi District of Pakistan's Punjab Province. It is located 90 kilometres (56 mi) from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. It is connected with Rawalpindi and Islamabad via the Azad Pattan Road. Historically, the tehsil of Sudhanoti established during the Dogra period by Raja Moti Singh as part of the larger Poonch jagir included territories that are now part of the separate Poonch District. This included towns such as Rawalakot and Khaigala, which historically lay within the greater, pre-partition Sudhanoti region.^[8]

Administering countryPakistan

HeadquartersPallandri

Time zoneUTC+5 (PST)

Websitesudhanoti.com

Quick facts ضلع سدھنوتی, Administering country ...

Sudhanoti District ضلع سدھنوتی
District of Azad Kashmir administered by Pakistan^[1]
A view of Cadet College Pallandri in the Sudhanoti District
Interactive map of Sudhanoti district
A map showing Sudhanoti district shaded in Yellow along with Poonch district
Coordinates (Pallandri Tehsil): 33°40′N 73°43′E
Administering country	Pakistan
Territory	Azad Kashmir
Division	Poonch Division
Headquarters	Pallandri
Government
• Type	District Administration
• Deputy Commissioner	N/A
• District Police Officer	N/A
• District Health Officer	N/A
Area
• Total	569 km² (220 sq mi)
Population (2017)^[2]
• Total	297,584
• Density	523/km² (1,350/sq mi)
Languages
• Official	Urdu^[3]
• Spoken	Pahari (Poonchi), Gujari, Kashmiri
Time zone	UTC+5 (PST)
Number of Tehsils	4
Website	sudhanoti.com

The district headquarters is the town of Pallandri. It lies at an elevation of 1,372 meters and is at a distance of 97 kilometers from Rawalpindi via the Azad Pattan Road. Pallandri is connected to Rawalakot by a 64-km metalled road.

Administrative divisions

The Sudhanoti District is divided into four tehsils:^[9]

History

Sudhnoti (now called Sudhanoti) was first established as a tehsil of the Poonch jagir by Raja Moti Singh, the ruler of Poonch in the second half of the 19th century. In the Dogra era, the tehsil of Sudhanoti also included the territories of the modern day Poonch district in Azad Kashmir.^[10]

Demographics

The population of Sudhanoti was recorded as 297,584 in the 2017 census.^[2]^[11]

Social groups

The district is estimated to inhabited by 85% population of the Sudhan tribe.^[12] Other main groups are Gujjar, Awan, Sayed, Qureshi and Kashmiri Muslims.

Language

The main native language is Pahari, spoken by an estimated 95% of the population. Gujari and Kashmiri spoken in the district by 5% populatio.^[13]^[14]

Pahari (95.0%)
Other (mainly Gujari, Kashmiri) (5.00%)

Education

According to the Alif Ailaan Pakistan District Education Rankings 2017, Sudhanoti is ranked 34 out of 155 districts with a score of 68.85 in terms of education. For facilities and infrastructure, the district is ranked last with the very low score of 6.76.^[15]

Educational institutes include:

Mirpur University of Science & Technology (MUST) Pallandri campus, Sudhanoti District
Mohi-ud-Din Islamic University Nerian Sharif, a chartered university situated 125 km west of Islamabad
University of Poonch (SM campus, Mang, Sudhanoti District)

Notable people

Aziz Khan, General of the Pakistan Army and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee^[16]
Khan Muhammad Khan, Politician and the Chairman of the War Council during the 1947 Poonch Rebellion^[17]
Muhammad Alauddin Siddiqui, Islamic Sufi Scholar and 2nd custodian of Nerian Sharif, Tarar Khel. He died on 3 February 2017.

References

[1]
The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary sources (a) through (e), reflecting due weight in the coverage. Although "controlled" and "held" are also applied neutrally to the names of the disputants or to the regions administered by them, as evidenced in sources (h) through (i) below, "held" is also considered politicized usage, as is the term "occupied," (see (j) below).
(a) Kashmir, region Indian subcontinent, Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 15 August 2019 (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent ... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, the last two being part of a territory called the Northern Areas. Administered by India are the southern and southeastern portions, which constitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir but are slated to be split into two union territories.";
(b) Pletcher, Kenneth, Aksai Chin, Plateau Region, Asia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 16 August 2019 (subscription required) Quote: "Aksai Chin, Chinese (Pinyin) Aksayqin, portion of the Kashmir region, at the northernmost extent of the Indian subcontinent in south-central Asia. It constitutes nearly all the territory of the Chinese-administered sector of Kashmir that is claimed by India to be part of the Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir state.";
(c) "Kashmir", Encyclopedia Americana, Scholastic Library Publishing, 2006, p. 328, ISBN 978-0-7172-0139-6 C. E Bosworth, University of Manchester Quote: "KASHMIR, kash'mer, the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, administered partlv by India, partly by Pakistan, and partly by China. The region has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan since they became independent in 1947";
(d) Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003), Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M, Taylor & Francis, pp. 1191–, ISBN 978-0-415-93922-5 Quote: "Jammu and Kashmir: Territory in northwestern India, subject to a dispute between India and Pakistan. It has borders with Pakistan and China."
(e) Talbot, Ian (2016), A History of Modern South Asia: Politics, States, Diasporas, Yale University Press, pp. 28–29, ISBN 978-0-300-19694-8 Quote: "We move from a disputed international border to a dotted line on the map that represents a military border not recognized in international law. The line of control separates the Indian and Pakistani administered areas of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir.";
(f) Skutsch, Carl (2015) [2007], "China: Border War with India, 1962", in Ciment, James (ed.), Encyclopedia of Conflicts Since World War II (2nd ed.), London and New York: Routledge, p. 573, ISBN 978-0-7656-8005-1, The situation between the two nations was complicated by the 1957–1959 uprising by Tibetans against Chinese rule. Refugees poured across the Indian border, and the Indian public was outraged. Any compromise with China on the border issue became impossible. Similarly, China was offended that India had given political asylum to the Dalai Lama when he fled across the border in March 1959. In late 1959, there were shots fired between border patrols operating along both the ill-defined McMahon Line and in the Aksai Chin.
(g) Clary, Christopher (25 February 2024), The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 109, ISBN 9780197638408, Territorial Dispute: The situation along the Sino-Indian frontier continued to worsen. In late July (1959), an Indian reconnaissance patrol was blocked, "apprehended," and eventually expelled after three weeks in custody at the hands of a larger Chinese force near Khurnak Fort in Aksai Chin. ... Circumstances worsened further in October 1959, when a major class at Kongka Pass in eastern Ladakh led to nine dead and ten captured Indian border personnel, making it by far the most serious Sino-Indian class since India's independence.
(h) Bose, Sumantra (2009), Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace, Harvard University Press, pp. 294, 291, 293, ISBN 978-0-674-02855-5 Quote: "J&K: Jammu and Kashmir. The former princely state that is the subject of the Kashmir dispute. Besides IJK (Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir. The larger and more populous part of the former princely state. It has a population of slightly over 10 million, and comprises three regions: Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh.) and AJK ('Azad" (Free) Jammu and Kashmir. The more populous part of Pakistani-controlled J&K, with a population of approximately 2.5 million.), it includes the sparsely populated "Northern Areas" of Gilgit and Baltistan, remote mountainous regions which are directly administered, unlike AJK, by the Pakistani central authorities, and some high-altitude uninhabitable tracts under Chinese control."
(i) Fisher, Michael H. (2018), An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge University Press, p. 166, ISBN 978-1-107-11162-2 Quote: "Kashmir's identity remains hotly disputed with a UN-supervised "Line of Control" still separating Pakistani-held Azad ("Free") Kashmir from Indian-held Kashmir.";
(j) Snedden, Christopher (2015), Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris, Oxford University Press, p. 10, ISBN 978-1-84904-621-3 Quote:"Some politicised terms also are used to describe parts of J&K. These terms include the words 'occupied' and 'held'."
[2]
"Population of Districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir - Sudhanoti District population". Citypopulation.de website. Archived from the original on 29 June 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
[3]
Rahman, Tariq (1996). Language and politics in Pakistan. Oxford University Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-19-577692-8.
[4]
Azad, Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. "AJ&K Map". Azad Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Retrieved 15 July 2025.
[5]
"AJ&K Portal". www.ajk.gov.pk.
[6]
Bawa, Satinder Singh (1974). The Jammu Fox: A Biography of Maharaja Gulab Singh of Kashmir, 1792-1857. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-0652-7.
[7]
"Subdivisions of AJK". Archived from the original on 5 April 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
[8]
Grewal, J. S. (2022). Poonch: India's Invincible Citadel. Lancer Publishers. In the Dogra era, the tehsil of Sudhanoti also included the territories of the modern-day Poonch district in Azad Kashmir.
[9]
"Tehsils of Sudhnoti District on AJK map". ajk.gov.pk. AJK Official Portal. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
[10]
Grewal, Brigadier J. S. (1 August 2022). Poonch: India's Invincible Citadel. Lancer Publishers. pp. 101–103, 105–107, 109–111. ISBN 978-81-7062-345-8.
[11]
"Census 2017: AJK population rises to over 4m". The Nation. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
[12]
Khan, Muhammad Faraz; Mashwani, Zia-ur-Rahman; Mehmood, Ansar; Qureshi, Rehmatullah; Sarwar, Rizwan; Ahmad, Khawaja Shafique; Quave, Cassandra L (2021). "An ethnopharmacological survey and comparative analysis of plants from the Sudhnoti District, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan". Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 17 (1): 14. doi:10.1186/s13002-021-00435-2. PMC 7980561. PMID 33743778. Owing to a unique tribal composition, where up to 85% of the district population belongs to the "Sudhan" tribe
[13]
Statistical Year Book 2020 (PDF). Muzaffarabad: AJ&K Bureau Of Statistics. p. 140. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
[14]
Shakil, Mohsin (2012). "Languages of Erstwhile State of Jammu Kashmir (A Preliminary Study)". p. 12.
[15]
"Pakistan District Education Rankings 2017" (PDF). elections.alifailaan.pk. Alif Ailaan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
[16]
Bhattacharya, Samir (2014). NOTHING BUT!. Partridge Publishing. p. 228. ISBN 978-1-48281-787-4.
[17]
"Introduction". Khan Sahib Government College of Technology, Rawalkot. Retrieved 14 October 2018.