Peshawar is the liveliest city of Pakistan, lying northwest of Rawalpindi at the edge of the Historic Khyber pass. The city is well known for its historic and cultural values. History is evident that Peshawar has seen many invaders and travellers passing by, from around the world. The city derives its name from a Sanskrit word "Pushpapura" meaning the city of flowers.

Today, Peshawar is famous as the Frontier Town of Pakistan. People here get dressed in a free and easy style. Hefty handsome men in baggy trousers and long, loose shirts, wear bullet-studded bandoleers across their chests or pistols at their sides as a part of their daily attire.

Peshawar is the great Pathan city, hoary with age and the passage of twenty-five centuries, redolent with the smell of luscious fruit and roasted meat and tobacco. North and south of Peshawar spreads the vast tribal area where lives the biggest tribal society of Pathans in the world, and the most well known. They themselves guard the Pakistan-Afghanistan border along the great passes of the Khyber. There are a number of things to do and see in Peshawar.

Old Peshawar and New Peshawar :

The ancient Peshawar was enclosed within a city wall with sixteen gates and remained so until the mid-fifties. The most famous is the Kabuli Gate that leads out to the Khyber and Kabul. The houses in the old city are two or three story, built mostly of unbaked bricks set in wooden frames, basically to guard against earthquakes. The attractions of the city are, a historical building, which houses the police offices, a Hindu temple and a Mughal Sarai.

Across the railway line was built the new modern Peshawar, the Cantonment, much in the British way of making one near every major city for their administrative offices, military barracks, residences, parks, churches and shops. In contrast to the old city, the Peshawar "Sadder" (Cantonment) is a spaciously laid out, neat and clean township with greenery of tall trees, wide tarred roads, big single-storied houses with lawns and a pervading aura of rare shrubs and flowers that is Peshawar's own. The heart of the sadder is the Khalid bin Walid (Company) Bagh, which is an old Mughal Garden. Two other splendid old gardens are the Shahi Bagh in the northeast and the Wazir Bagh in the southeast, all of which give the character of a garden city to Peshawar.

Monuments and Museums :

The mighty Bala Hisaar Fort standing prominent on both eastern approaches to Peshawar city meets the eye when coming from Rawalpindi or Khyber. Originally built by Babar, the first of the Moghals in 1526-30, it is a massive frowning structure. It houses government offices at present.

Peshawar Museum is housed in an imposing building of the British days. It was formerly the Victoria Memorial Hall built in 1905. The large hall, side galleries and the raised platform display the finest specimens of Gandhara sculptures, tribal life, the Muslim period and ethnography.

In Sadder, there are the splendid modern state bank building, Governor's house, hotels, old missionary Edwards collage, archly stocked museum and a fine shopping area. The pride of Peshawar today is its university, a vast sprawling garden town of red brick buildings and velvet lawns, which comprises a dozen departments and colleges of law, medicine, engineering and forestry.

The Peshawar Bazaars :

As Peshawar is an important border city the bazaars of Peshawar are the most attractive. They are always busy with a lot of hustle-bustle. The Kissa Khawani Bazaar (Story tellers Bazaar) is the most interesting of all. There are merchandise from all over central Asia here. Oriental rugs, Afghan jewelry, tribal handicrafts, woodcarving, spices and all kinds of fabrics are available here.