Charsadda

Charsadda is a town and the headquarters of Charsadda District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It lies in the Valley of Peshawar, about 29 kilometres from Peshawar, at an altitude of 276 metres, and three rivers flow past it, the Jindi, the Kabul and the Swat, which supply its irrigation. The site was settled around 1400 BCE, and the city hosts the ruins of the ancient Gandharan capital Pushkalavati, meaning Lotus City in Sanskrit, which was the capital of Gandhara from the 6th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. The father of Sanskrit grammar, Panini, came from this area and lived around the 4th century BCE. The 2023 census counted 120,170 inhabitants.