Attock

Attock, ex-Campbellpur, is a city located in the northern border of the Punjab province, 10 kilometres from the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex of Kamra. It is a place where the Grand Trunk Road crosses the Indus River, about halfway between Islamabad and Peshawar. Attock was a small place of no importance until the 1540s when Sher Shah Suri chose it as the crossing place for his new Shahi Road from Delhi to Kabul.

The most impressive sight at Attock is undoubtedly Sher Shah Suri’s Caravanserai. A 16th-century hotel, it consists of four rows of small rooms set around a huge courtyard. From the walls of the caravanserai there is an excellent view of the river, the new bridge and Attock Fort. The small town of Attock, with its Moghal tombs and ruined Hindu temples, is now bypassed by the new road to the new bridge.Attock Fort was built between 1581 and 1586 by the Moghal emperor Akbar, when he made the city his base for military campaigns against Kabul, recognizing the strategic importance of this area. The fort is used by the Pakistan army and is not open to the public. The road up to the front gate is closed, but you can get an excellent view of it from the new bridge across the Indus. It stands on a hill at the mouth of Attock Gorge, surrounded by two and a half kilometres of high crenulated walls in perfect condition. From the West end of the new bridge you can make a detour left, downstream along the old road, for a fine view back across the river to the fort. The fort slopes down the hill so you can see inside it from across the river. It must have been very exposed to artillery fire from the hill opposite on the West bank.Akbar established a colony of boatmen whose descendants still live in the little village beside the river below the fort. The boatmen came from further South and were very adept at crossing the river on inflated skin rafts. In the dry season the river was crossed by a bridge of boats anchored on either side to piers which are still there, a little downriver to the fort.

The Indus is the boundary between the Punjab and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhaw Province. Looking right from the new bridge you can see the confluence of the muddy Kabul River and the clear Indus, the latter having deposited its silt behind Tarbela Dam. The viewpoint on the right, beside a large rock, overlooks the confluence and an island with a rest house midstream.

Attock District has a climate of hot summers and cold winters. The northern part of the district is more humid and moderate in its weather than the southern part due to the higher altitude. Here are the average temperatures in this city:

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