Map of Pakistan

The Khairpur district is a district in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Khairpur is the principal city of the district. Khairpur district is located in the northern part of the Sindh province. It lies between 26º 11' and 27º 44' north latitude and 68º 12' and 70º 11' east longitudes.

The total area of Khairpur is 15,910 square kilometers. The total population of Khairpur district is approx. over 2 million of which 23.23% was urban in 1998. The average annual growth rate of the population is 2.71% according to Board of Revenue Sindh. Khairpur has the population density of 95.2 per square Kilometer. Khairpur has eight talukas Khairpur, Nara, Kot Diji, Sobho Dero, Mirwah, Kingri, Faiz Ganj and Gambat.

The district is bounded on the north by Shikarpur and Sukkur districts, on the east by India, on the south by Sanghar, Nawabshah and Nosheropheroz districts and on the west by Larkana district.

Like other parts of Sind, Khairpur consists of a great alluvial plain, very rich and fertile in the neighbourhood of the Indus and the irrigation canals, the remaining area being a continuous series of sand-hill ridges covered with a stunted brushwood, where cultivation is altogether impossible. A small ridge of limestone hills passes through the northern part of the state, being a continuation of a ridge known as the Ghar, running southwards from Rohri. The state is watered by five canals drawn off from the Indus, besides the Eastern Nara, a canal which follows an old bed of the Indus. In the desert tracts are pits of natron. Khairpur town is situated on a canal 15 m. E. of the Indus, with a railway station, 20 m. S. of Sukkur, on the Kotri-Rohri branch of the North-Western railway, which here crosses a corner of the District.

The main railway line of Pakistan Railway from Karachi to Peshawar is going from the district which is coming from Nawabshah district to the Khairpur district towns of Mehrabpur, Setharja, Ranipur, Gambat, Tando Masti, and Khairpur Mirs City, and then goes to Sukkur district.

Two highways are going from Khairpur one is Super Highway which comes from Doulatpur (Nosheroferoz district) to the Khairpur district towns Hingorja, Ranipur, Gambat, Tando Masti, Tehri, Baberlo and goes on to Sukkur.

Other one is the National Highway which comes from Nawabshah district to the khairpur towns of Faizganj, Tharri Mirwah, Kot Diji, Khairpur and Tehri; the National Highway is merging into Super Highway exactly after Tehri.

A new bridge has been built between Khairpur Larkana across the Indus River connected to a road that joins the national highway in Khairpur which was completed in 2010.

Following are the demographic indicators of the district as per the 1998 census of Pakistan (Hindus and Christians as well as Urdu speakers are mainly concentrated in the urban areas):

Religion:

  * Islam: 96.86%
  * Hinduism: 2.93%
  * Christianity: 0.09%
  * Ahmaddiya: 0.07%
  * Others: 0.04%

Languages:

  * Sindhi: 93.85%
  * Punjabi: 3.16%
  * Urdu:1.37%
  * Baluchi:0.70%
  * Seraiki:0.34%
  * Pashto:0.25%
  * Others: 0.33%

The main crop of Khairpur is Date; Khairpur is often called 'City of Dates'. The land of Khairpur is fertile enough for almost any kind of crop. Khairpur trades in wheat, cotton, and dates and is linked by road and rail to Karachi. Manufactures include refined sugar. Prior to the annexation of the state in to Pakistan in 1955, Khairpur was industrially more advanced than Pakistan producing leather goods, carpets, silk clothing, matches, soap, shoes, cigarettes to name a few. It also had the largest factories in textiles, silk weaving and tobacco redrying in the sub-continent. Virtually all of the factories were shut down by the Government of Pakistan which devastated the local economy.

At present Khairpur has only two sugar mills, four date factories, nineteen ice factories and eighteen cotton ginning mills.