Derawar Fort

In the flat, sandy expanse of the Cholistan Desert in southern Punjab, the walls of Derawar Fort rise straight out of the plain, ringed by forty massive round bastions that can be seen from miles away. The square fortress is built of fired clay brick, its walls running for about 1.5 kilometres around the perimeter and standing up to thirty metres high, with ten bastions on each side. Many of the bastions are worked with patterns cut into the brick. Of the chain of desert forts that once guarded this region, Derawar is the best preserved.

Cholistan forms the western edge of the Thar Desert. In prehistory the land was watered by the Hakra river and settled by people of the Indus Valley civilisation, but the river dried up and the area became desert. Even so it remained a corridor for caravans between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and for pilgrims bound for Mecca, and a string of forts, including Maujgarh, Khangarh and Islamgarh, offered water and protection along the way. According to tradition, the first fort at Derawar was founded in the ninth century by Rai Jajja Bhati, a Hindu Rajput of the Bhati clan, in honour of Rawal Deoraj Bhati of Jaisalmer, and its name grew out of Dera Rawal, later Dera Rawar.

In the eighteenth century the fort passed to the Abbasi Nawabs of Bahawalpur, who rebuilt it into its present form in 1732 under Nawab Sadeq Muhammad. It changed hands again in 1747 and was recovered in 1804 by Nawab Mubarak Khan. The last ruler of the princely state of Bahawalpur, Nawab Sadeq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V, was born here in 1904. Inside the walls are traces of buildings once decorated with tilework and frescoes, along with underground chambers cooled by passive ventilation. Close to the fort stand the Abbasi Mosque, built in 1849, and the domed mausoleums and cemetery of the Nawabs and their families. In 2016 Pakistan placed Derawar and the desert forts of Cholistan on its tentative list for World Heritage.

Getting there

Derawar lies in Yazman Tehsil of Bahawalpur District, deep in the Cholistan Desert, reached by road across the desert. The nearest town is Ahmadpur East, about 42 km to the north. The nearest airport is Bahawalpur Airport (BHV), about 75 km away.