Port Grand

Port Grand Food and drink and Entertainment Complex is a recreational area built in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan along the waterfront of the 19th century Native Jetty Bridge that connects the Karachi Port Trust to Keamari. The project was a result of joint efforts made by the Karachi Port Trust and a private company Grand Leisure Corporation. The complex was opened for public on May 28th of 2011, with then Governor of Sindh, Ishratul Ibad inaugurating the complex. The complex is a hub of shopping, dining, cultural and coastal recreational activities in the city.

Port Grand is located on Napier Mole Bridge a site that is very significant to the history of Karachi and has played a crucial role in making it the city it is today. The project stretches along 1,000 ft of Karachi’s ancient 19th century Native Jetty Bridge and spreads over an area of 200,000 sq. ft.

The one kilometer bridge has been transformed into an entertainment and food enclave housing numerous eateries totaling 40,000 sq. ft of climate-controlled area and space for kiosks and 11 restaurants of exotic Pakistani and foreign food and a variety of beverages.

Clifton Beach (Seaview)

Clifton Beach or Seaview is a beach in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan located on the Arabian Sea. It is one of the neighborhoods of Clifton, Saddar Town. In 2003 it was affected by an oil spill. The special thing is that its sand is black sand.

PAF Museum, Karachi

PAF Museum, Karachi (Urdu: پاک فضائیہ متحف ‎) is an Air Force museum and park situated near Karsaz Flyover on Shahra-e-Faisal in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

A majority of the aircraft, weapons and radar are displayed outside in the park but the main museum features all major fighter aircraft that have been used by the Pakistan Air Force. The museum also houses the Vickers VC.1 Viking used by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, and a Folland Gnat of the Indian Air Force,[1] that landed in Pasrur in 1965 war. Also on display are the scale models of some WWI, WWII and modern aircraft and photo galleries of almost all the squadrons of PAF.

Masjid e Tooba

Masjid e Tooba or Tooba Mosque (Urdu: مسجد طوبٰی‎) is in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, and is locally known as the Gol Masjid.

Masjid e Tooba was built in 1969 in Defence Housing Society Karachi, Karachi. It is just off main Korangi Road. Masjid e Tooba is often claimed to be the largest single-dome mosque in the world. It is also major tourist attraction in Karachi. Masjid e Tooba is built with pure white marble. The dome is 72 meters (236 feet) in diameter and is balanced on a low surrounding wall with no central pillars. Masjid e Tooba has a single minaret standing 70 meters high. The mosque is the 18th largest in the world with the central prayer hall having a capacity of 5,000 people.

It was built keeping acoustics in mind. A person speaking inside one end of the dome can be heard at the other end. This mosque was designed by Pakistani architect Dr Babar Hamid Chauhan and the engineer was Zaheer Haider Naqvi.

Bahria Icon Tower

Bahria Icon Tower is an under-construction topped out skyscraper with the height of 272m and located on coast of the Arabian Sea in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. The complex is based on a four acre plot in the up-scale Clifton area.

The 62-storey building mixed-used tower, when completed, will be the tallest building in Pakistan and second tallest in South Asia. The building consists of 10 floors of serviced corporate offices, 40 floors of serviced apartments, Pakistan’s highest located terraced restaurant and South Asia’s first double-decker high speed elevator along with a shopping mall.

Mohatta Palace

The Mohatta Palace is located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It was built by Shivratan Chandraratan Mohatta, a Hindu Marwari businessman from modern day Rajasthan in India, in 1927, as his summer home. The architect of the palace was Agha Ahmed Hussain. However, Mohatta could enjoy this building for only about two decades before independence, after which he left Karachi for India. He built the Palace in the tradition of stone palaces in Rajasthan, using pink Jodhpur stone in combination with the local yellow stone from Gizri. The amalgam gave the palace a distinctive presence in an elegant neighbourhood, characterised by Indo-Saracenic architecture which was located not far from the sea. Mohatta Palace was the place Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his sister Mohatarma Fatima Ali Jinnah. Now a days it is a museum.

Karachi Zoo

Karachi Zoo also known as Karachi Zoological Garden is located on Nishter Road and Sir Agha Khan III Road in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It is the oldest zoo in the country after Lahore Zoo.

Areas and Attraction:-

1. Elephant House is the most famous exhibit in the zoo. A 65-year-old Asian elephant, named ‘Anarkali’, died on 19 July 2006.Two female African bush elephants arrived at the zoo on 16 May 2010 from Karachi Safari Park. Both were born in Tanzania in 2007 and have been named ‘Noor Jahan’ and ‘Madhu Bala’.

2. Natural History Museum, renovated in 1992, is one of the more famous attractions in Karachi Zoo. Apart from stuffed animals, skins, antlers, horns and feathers etc. are also placed on display in the museum. The facility is used by zoology students for research and educational motives.
3. Reptile House was extended and renovated in 1992. It is one of the few reptile houses in Pakistan. There are 13 species of snakes and lizards. Newly born hatchlings of testudines and crocodilians are also exhibited.
4. Veterinary Hospital was established in 1998 in Karachi Zoo with modern diagnostic facilities. There is an operation theatre, equipped with X-ray and sonogram facilities, multiple sick bays, a laboratory and an incubation room.
5. Mughal Garden, established in 1970, has green lawns with seasonal plants that occupy a major part of the garden accompanied with Mughal-style fountains. The garden is famous for different varieties of roses and other flowers that are exhibited there.
White Lions, purchased in 2012 and a big draw for the zoo, are a part of a breeding programme.

Frere Hall

Frere Hall :- A beautiful structure built during the days of the British Raj,

Frere Hall is one of the many remnant buildings of the British Colonial era that still exist in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

It was built in honor of Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, who was a British and was known for promoting economic development in Sindh and also for making the Sindhi Language compulsory to use in Sindh instead of Persian. Basically Frere Hall after Sir Henry Bartle Edwards Frere’s death become a museum which include all the paintings and books from the British Colonial era.

As of 2016, Frere Hall is still open for public and it is also one of the most important place for tourism because not only the building are really well architect but it also carries a lot of information of British rule in Sub-Continent. Frere Halls is also one of the main building made for British in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

The Hall is ideally located in front of the Marriott hotel and right next to Sindh club. It’s located between Haroon road (formerly Victoria Road) and Fatima Jinnah Road (formerly Bonus Road) and it’s also surrounded by American Embassy and Singapore Embassy. So basically the area is also surrounded by High Security zone because of embassies. It is located in civil lines locality of the town.

Frere Hall stands proud with overlooking the distant horizon. This 151-years-old construction serves a deeper historical purpose, one that is traveled with people, their culture and their practice through the decades. Out of 13 different design option where considered for the project but Lieutenant Colonel Clair Wilson’s architectural design clearly stood out which gave the Hall Venetian-Gothic look.

Architecture:-

The layout of the Frere Hall is the perfect blend of British architecture and Sub-continent architecture. The architecture includes multiple pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. Amazing craving on the walls and beautifully articulated mosaic designs are visible on multiple walls and pillars which supported the building and which attracts the tourist a lot.

The total cost of this hall was about Rs. 180,000 out of which the Government contributed Rs. 10,000 while the rest was paid for by the municipality.

Merewether Clock Tower

Introduction:-

Merewether Clock Tower or Merewether Tower is located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

It was raised by public subscription as a memorial for Sir William L. Merewether.

Design and Construction:-

Designed by James Strachan, the Municipal Engineer, the foundation stone was laid by the Governor of Bombay, Sir James Fergusson in 1884. It was formally opened to the public in 1892 by the Commissioner in Sind, Sir Evan James.

Description:-

The Tower stands on a base of 44 feet square and rises to a height of 102 feet. Strachan designed the tower in the Gothic Revival style popular in Victorian England, to evoke the architecture of Medieval England (11th to 15th century A.D.). The structure is built in buff colored Gizri stone and shows a heightened sensitivity to detailing and emphasis on carving and decoration. The architecture takes the form of an Eleanor cross. Eleanor crosses were a series of 12 monuments erected in England by King Edward I between 1291 and 1294, in memory of his wife, Eleanor of Castile. Three of the original Eleanor Crosses still exist in England. Many similar neo-Gothic style structures were built in Victorian England, and impressive clock towers are found all over Pakistan. The Star of David on its faces often attracts anti-Jewish graffiti including the derisive Urdu term “Yehudi”.

Wazir Mansion

Wazir Mansion, The official Quaid-i-Azam Birthplace Museum is a former family home in the Kharadar district of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan which is considered the birthplace of the country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Birth-Place:-

Wazir Mansion may be the birthplace of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Once, it was misunderstood to be Jhirk, which was later revealed to be untrue. The reality was disclosed in the book My Brother written in the 1960s by Muhammed Ali Jinnah’s sister, Fatima Jinnah in his biography wherein she described the salient features of her brother’s life. She mentioned their ancestral village, Paneli, in the state of Gondal, Kathiawar, in the province of Gujarat, in present-day India. Their father, Mr. Jinnah Poonja, had settled in Karachi because of a business partnership with an English Merchant company named Grams Trading Company, whose office was then located in Karachi. Jinnah’s ancestral family and their progenies including M. A. Jinnah’s daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren have been residents, to this day, of the province of Gujrat and Bombay. Muhammed Ali Jinnah’s father got the house for rent in 1874 and settled here for some time. By 1900, he again returned to his native state.

Saddar

Saddar the heart of Karachi:-

Saddar! The downtown of Karachi. The area of legacy. The area of Old age of Karachi. The heritage of Karachi. The economy builder of Karachi.

Saddar (Urdu: صدر ‎) is one of the neighbourhoods of Saddar Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Saddar is the central business district of Karachi. ‘Saddar’ generally means ‘centre’ (of the town) and also ‘head’ (of State or organization). Empress Market in Saddar is the central shopping area of Karachi. Karachi’s central bus station is also located in Saddar, thus connecting it with other areas of Karachi. A major street in Saddar is named Zaibunnisa Street, after the influential author and journalist, Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah. This street is one of the most modern and bustling in Karachi. Saddar is the hub of business activities in Karachi and is one of the oldest parts of the city. Many beautiful examples of British Colonial architecture can be found here; like the main building of Karachi Grammar School, Frere Hall and the Sindh Club. This was the centre of Karachi in the colonial era, and still is today.

Saddar also has the famous Karachi building called Rainbow Centre.

There are several ethnic groups in Saddar including Muhajirs, Sindhis, Punjabis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Brahuis, Memons, Bohras, Ismailis, etc. Over 85% of the population is Muslim. There are also Christian, Hindu, Parsis, Ahmadis, and other religious communities in Saddar. The population of Saddar Town is estimated to be nearly one million.

Mazar-e-Quaid

Mazar-e-Quaid, Mausoleum Jinnah or National Mausoleum is the tomb of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, located in Karachi, Pakistan. It is one of the most important monuments of Karachi. The mausoleum was built in the 1960s and is situated in the city center.

The location of the mausoleum is usually quiet, which is significant because it is in the center of one of the biggest megacities in the world. At night, you can see kilometers away. Apart from Jinnah, they are also buried here Fatima Jinnah, sister, and Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan. On special occasions, this official and military ceremonies, as on 23 March (Pakistan Day), August 14 (Independence Day), September 11 (Anniversary of the Death of Jinnah) and 25 place December (Birthday Jinnah). During official visits, the leaders of foreign countries visit the mausoleum.