is the capital of the province of Punjab. A native of Lahore is called a Lahori.
It is located near the river Ravi and the Indian border and is the second largest city in Pakistan. Lahore is largely thought of as the cultural centre of Pakistan ever since its accession by mughal rulers since the 16th century A.D.
According to a legend, Lahore was named by Loh the once ruler, son of Rama, the hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana.
The city came under Muslim rule due to the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni. When Qutb-ud-din Aybak was crowned in 1206 here, he became the first Muslim Sultan of the Indian subcontinent. From 1524 to 1752 Lahore was part of the Mughal Empire.
During Akbar's rule, Lahore was the capital of the empire from 1584 to 1598. During this time a massive fort, the Lahore Fort, was built on the fundaments of an older fort in the 1560s. This fort was later extended by Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
The last of the Mughals, Aurangzeb, ruling from 1658 to 1707, built the city's most famous monuments, the Badshahi Masjid and the Alamgiri Gate to the Lahore Fort.
The Sikhs ruled it in the 18th and 19th centuries, making Lahore the capital of sovereign Punjab. However the last bloody anglo-sikh war resulted in very narrow British victory thus bringing Lahore under the rule of the British crown. On partition of British India in 1947 into India and Pakistan, Lahore passed into the newly formed Pakistan.
The Badshahi Masjid, one of the world's largest mosques, is located just outside the Northeast corner of the Walled City. Opposite is the historic Lahore Fort which houses the famous Sheesh Mahal. Between the two buildings is a garden known as Hazuri Bagh in which Maharaja Ranjit Singh built a baradari, a decorated marble pavilion. Every Sunday afternoon story-tellers, poets and singers gather in the garden to continue their oral tradition, often reciting Waris Shah's Heer, Bulleh Shah, Farid Ganjshakar or other Punjabi literature.