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Deserts of Pakistan: A Complete Overview

๐Ÿ“… Aug 16, 2026โฑ 6 min read
Editorial note: Prepared by the Pakistan Tours local operations team. Visa, permit, safety, access and price information can change; confirm current official requirements and your written quotation before travel.

Pakistan's deserts are more varied than most visitors expect, spanning a hot southern desert system and an unusual high-altitude "cold desert" in the north.

Cholistan Desert, Punjab: Pakistan's largest contiguous desert, continuing the same system as Sindh's Thar Desert and India's Rajasthan Desert, home to Derawar Fort and the annual Cholistan Jeep Rally.

Thar Desert, Sindh: The Sindh portion of the same broader desert system, notable for its significant Hindu population living alongside Muslim communities, reflecting Sindh's religious diversity.

Katpana Cold Desert, Skardu: an unusual landscape, a cold desert at over 2,200m elevation in the Karakoram, combining sand dunes with a backdrop of snow-capped peaks, a combination found in very few places worldwide.

Sarfaranga Cold Desert, Skardu: A larger dune field near Shigar, increasingly used for jeep rallies and off-road motorsport alongside its natural desert-landscape appeal.

What makes Pakistan's deserts distinctive as a group: Few countries offer both a classic hot desert system and a high-altitude cold desert within relatively accessible reach of each other, each with different visitor appeal, desert safaris and forts in the south, otherworldly mountain-backed dunes in the north.

See our Cholistan Desert guide and our Katpana Cold Desert guide for the two most distinct desert experiences.

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