Layyah

Layyah, also spelled Leiah, is a city in Punjab province, Pakistan, and the headquarters of both Layyah District and Layyah Tehsil. It lies at an average elevation of about 143 metres on a block of sandy land between the Indus and Chenab rivers in the Indus Sagar Doab. According to its source the town was founded around 1550 by Kamal Khan Mirani, a Baloch of the Mirani dynasty and a descendant of Ghazi Khan, who laid the foundation of Dera Ghazi Khan. It was later held by the Jaskani Baloch and by governors under the Durrani rulers, became an administrative centre under the Sikh government, and after the British occupation of 1849 was briefly a divisional headquarters before being reduced to a tehsil seat. The municipality was created in 1875, and in 1982 the tehsil was upgraded to district headquarters. The main languages are Saraiki, Punjabi and Urdu, and the 2023 census counted 151,274 residents.