Place · frontier citadel · Pakistan
Bala Hissar, Peshawar
The fort on the mound at the north-west corner of Peshawar, on ground that has been fortified since the city was Purushapura. Bābur wrote of a fort here; the Durrānis held it as their winter seat; Ranjīt Singh's forces took the city in 1834 and Hari Singh Nalwa rebuilt the citadel in brick, naming it Sumergarh; the British took it in 1849 and used it as the headquarters from which the frontier was administered. It is the Frontier Corps headquarters today, so it has been a garrison continuously for roughly two thousand years.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 34.014, 71.570
Worth knowing
The Persian name means high fort, and the elevation is not natural: the mound is the accumulated debris of the city beneath it, so every garrison has been standing on the rubble of the ones before.
Connections (3)
- Site adjacencyPurushapura / Peshawar
Bala Hissar stands on the mound of Purushapura itself, which is to say that the fort's height is the city's own accumulated debris. Every power that has held Peshawar has held this corner: Bābur noted a fort here, the Durrānis wintered in it, Hari Singh Nalwa rebuilt it in brick as Sumergarh after the Sikhs took the city in 1834, the British administered the frontier from it after 1849, and the Frontier Corps occupies it now. Roughly two thousand years of continuous garrison on one artificial hill.
- AnalogueLahore Fort & Shalimar
Lahore and Peshawar both hand their citadel to each successive power, and both citadels stand on the mound of the city beneath them. Each was Mughal, then Sikh — Ranjīt Singh at Lahore, Hari Singh Nalwa rebuilding Peshawar's as Sumergarh in 1834 — then British, and each is still in official hands rather than open ground. The difference is what they became: Lahore Fort is a world heritage site with the Shalimar gardens, and Bala Hissar is the headquarters of the Frontier Corps.
- Site withinPurushapura / Peshawar
The Bala Hissar fort sits within Peshawar (ancient Purushapura) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The 7-century fort on an elevated mound at the centre of the walled old city served as the Durrani Afghan governor's seat from the 1760s, as the Sikh Hari Singh Nalwa's governor's residence (1823-1849), and as the British garrison headquarters. It currently houses the Frontier Corps Pakistan headquarters. The fort remains Peshawar's chief ceremonial landmark.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bala Hissar, Peshawar”. Bābur, Bāburnāma; KP directorate of archaeology records; Imperial Gazetteer of India, North-West Frontier Province volume.
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