Current Time in Mirpur Khas, Pakistan

Mirpur Khas stands on the eastern plains of Sindh in southern Pakistan, about sixty kilometres east of Hyderabad, at the point where the irrigated farmland of the lower Indus gives way to the sandy dunes of the Thar Desert. Canals drawn from the Indus water the surrounding fields, creating a belt of orchards and cotton land in an otherwise arid landscape. Summers are intensely hot, winters mild and dry, and dust from the desert often hangs in the air.

The city has a population approaching half a million and is the administrative headquarters of its district and division. It is celebrated across Pakistan as the mango capital of the country, and the surrounding orchards produce some of the finest varieties grown anywhere, exported in large quantities each summer. Cotton, sugarcane, wheat and chillies are also grown here, supporting ginning factories, sugar mills and food processing plants.

The area has a long and layered history. A few kilometres away lie the ruins of Kahu-jo-Daro, a Buddhist stupa of the Gupta period whose terracotta panels are among the finest ancient sculptures found in Sindh, showing that this was an important religious centre more than fifteen hundred years ago. The modern town was founded in 1806 by Mir Ali Murad Talpur, a ruler of the Talpur dynasty who governed Sindh from a fort here, and its name recalls that origin. The British annexation of Sindh in 1843, followed by the digging of canals and the building of a railway, turned it into a market town for the newly irrigated countryside, and after 1947 it received large numbers of migrants from India, which reshaped its population and culture.

Landmarks include the Talpur-era tombs and the old fort area, the shrines of local saints, and the excavated Buddhist site nearby. The city is best known, however, for its annual mango festival, when growers display dozens of varieties and the streets fill with visitors, music and food. Colourful bazaars sell Sindhi embroidery, ajrak block-printed cloth, lacquered woodwork and glass bangles, and the desert towns of Tharparkar, with their peacocks, Hindu temples and Jain ruins, begin a short drive to the east.

The population is unusually diverse for Pakistan, with Sindhi, Urdu-speaking and Punjabi communities alongside one of the country's larger Hindu minorities, whose temples and festivals such as Holi and Diwali are visible in the city. Sufi music, folk poetry and the shrine culture of Sindh remain strong influences on daily life.

A railway junction connects the city to Hyderabad and Karachi, and roads run east towards the desert and south towards the coast. Colleges of arts, science, commerce and medicine serve the district, with universities in Hyderabad and a campus of Sindh Agriculture University supporting the farming economy.

Mirpur Khas is important as the market town of eastern Sindh, known for its mangoes, its ancient Buddhist past and its mixed communities on the edge of the desert.