Interesting Facts about Punjab

This article is all about historical, geographical, social, religious, cultural, amazing, rare, unknown interesting facts about Punjab.

Quick Basis Facts about Punjab

Capital – Chandigarh
Official Language – Punjabi
Main spoken languages – Punjabi, Hindi
Area – 50,362 Sq Km
Area Rank – 19th
Population – 2,77,04,236 (as per 2011 census)
Population Rank – 16th
Population Density – 550 / Sq Km
Pop. Density Rank – 7th
Sex Ratio – 893 females per 1000 male (2011 census)
Sex Ratio Rank – 26th
Literacy Rate – 76.6 %
No of Districts – 22
Assembly seats – 117 (Unicameral Legislature)
Lok Sabha seats – 13
Rajya sabha seats – 7
First Chief Minister – Gopi Chand Bhargava
First Governor of present Punjab – Chandulal Madhavlal Trivedi
Established on – 15 Aug 1947 (As Punjab Province)
Created in its present form on – 31 Oct, 1966 (Himachal and Haryana separated out)

Indian Punjab state came to existence after independence on 15 Aug 1947. Punjab in its present form was created on 31 Oct 1966 after separation of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.
The sikh faith came into light in Punjab region during 15 and 16 century. Guru Nanak founded new religion followed by 9 Gurus.
Guru Ram das laid the foundation of present city amritsar.
Guru Arjun Dev compiled the Adi Granth. His son Guru Har Gobind trained his followers in military art.
The Sikh Empire (1801 – 1849) was formed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Punjab borders with 4 states – Jammu and Kasmir in north, Himachal pradesh in northeast, Haryana in south and Rajasthan in Southwest.
Punjab shares its international border with Pakistan in west. The international border length along with Pakistan is 425 Km.
The land is highly fertile as it is watered by Indus, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej and Ghaggar (Literal meaning of punjab is 5 rivers).
The word punjab is made of two words- “punj” means five and “ab” means water.
Amritsar district of Punjab is largest in terms of both area and population.

The holiest of Sikh shrines, Harminder sahib (Golden Temple) is in the city of Amritsar. The city of Amritsar was founded by fourth Sikh Guru Ram Das and this temple was designed by fifth Guru Arjan. The temple in its present form was rebuilt by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia in 1764. Gold cover was installed above the gurudwara by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Of the five Takhts of Sikhism, three are in Punjab – Sri Akal Thakt Sahib, Damdama Sahib and Anandpur Sahib.
Literacy rate of Punjab is 76.6 % which is above than India’s average literacy rate of 74.04 %. Punjab is 14th most literate state of India.
Bhangra and Giddha are traditional dance forms of the state to celebrate the harvest season of Lohri.
Amritsar is one of the major tourist destinations of not only punjab but India attracting more visitors than Taj Mahal.

Punjab is regarded as the most fertile regions on earth and is also called as “Granary of India” or “Indian Bread basket”.
Punjab contributes 43 % of wheat and 25 % of rice to central pool which ensures national food security. Punjab produces 17% of India’s wheat and 11% of India’s rice (year 2013 data).
Agriculture is the largest industry of this state. 84 % of land is under cultivation.
Punjab produces 70% best quality cotton in India. However cotton spindlage capacity of state is not good and serves only 1.5% of total country’s capacity.
Milk processing at Moga, Amritsar is largest plant of Punjab with 435,000 liters of processing capacity
Main Agriculture Products of Punjab – Wheat, Rice, Maize, Bajra, jowar, barley, oilseeds, sugarcane, potato, cotton, pulses and tobaco.
Dera Bassi, Ludhiana is the major industrial city and is also called as Manchester of India.
Batala is known for Cast Iron (casting) and mechanical machinery. Batala was also called as Iron Bird of India due to high volume of CI casting production.
It also has largest number of steel rolling plants which are located in “Steel Town” in Mandi Gobindgarh of Fathgarh Sahib district.
Other industries of Punjab state are machine tools, textiles, sewing machine industry, sports good and fertilizers. Punjab along with Haryana are the leading states which has scientific instruments industry.

Aroon Purie – is the famous businessman, CEO of India Today Group and Editor of India Today Magazine was born in Lahore of undivided Punjab before independence.
Sunil Mittal – is the famous businessman and CEO of Bharti Telecom. He was born in Ludhiana of Punjab.
Sabeer Bhatia – who is the founder of Hot Mail, graduated from BITS Pilani and was born in Chandigarh.
Naresh Goyal – the chairman of Jet Airways was born in Sangrur of Punjab in 1949.
Amrita Sher Gil – is a famous painter who was born in Budapest (Hungary) to Punjabi Sikh father. She is also known as most expensive woman painter of India.
Har Govind Khurana – was the scientist who received Nobel Prize in year 1968. He later became citizen of US. He was born in Raipur of Punjab (present Punjab region of Pakistan).
Dharmendra – the famous hindi films actor was born in Ludhiana district of Punjab.
Jeetendra – the famous charming hindi film actor whose real name is Ravi Kapoor was born in Amritsar.
Numerous old Bollywood actors are either born or lineage related to undivided Punjab of British India. They are Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Balraj Sahni, Rajendra Kumar, Amrish Puri, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Pankaj Kapoor, Veeru Devgan, Gufi Paintal, Anand Bakshi, Yash Chopra.