Princess of Hope
Interesting facts
- The formation became easy to see only after the Makran Coastal Highway was completed in 2004, which brought a surge of visitors to the park's rock sculptures.
- The neighbouring Balochistan Sphinx is also known by the name Abul-Hol and is often compared with the Great Sphinx of Giza.
- Elsewhere in the same national park stand mud volcanoes that erupt methane-laden mud instead of lava.
- The Hingol River, which gives the park its name, is the longest river in Balochistan and flows all year round.
- The surrounding park records about 257 plant species and 289 animal species, including 35 kinds of mammals.
- Kund Malir, the beach a short way along the same coast, was named among Asia's 50 most beautiful beaches in 2018.
Why it is worth it
On the dry Makran coast of Balochistan, wind and rain have worked a pinnacle of soft mud and rock into the outline of a woman: a slender column that seems to wear a crown on its head and a long flared skirt at its base. The figure is a hoodoo, or fairy chimney, a type of formation left standing when erosion strips away the weaker material around a more resistant cap, and its human silhouette is a case of the eye finding a familiar form in stone. It stands in a landscape full of such shapes, where eroded ridges, gullies and pillars rise above the coastal plain.
The name is recent. It was given in 2002 by the actress Angelina Jolie, who passed through the area while serving as a UN goodwill ambassador and named the rock on the spot, struck by the way it resembled a figure looking out over the land. The label stuck, and the Princess of Hope has since become one of the best-known landmarks along this stretch of the coast. Close by stands another of the region's rock sculptures, the so-called Balochistan Sphinx, also called the Lion of Balochistan, whose eroded mass recalls a crouching beast with a head and paws. Both are visible from the Buzi Pass section of the Makran Coastal Highway.
The formation lies within Hingol National Park, the largest national park in Pakistan, designated in 1988 and covering about 6,100 square kilometres across the districts of Lasbela, Gwadar and Awaran. The park takes its name from the Hingol River, which forms an estuary before reaching the Arabian Sea, and its terrain ranges from desert and barren mountains to coastal plains. Among its other sights are the beach of Kund Malir and the Hindu temple of Hinglaj Mata, which draws a quarter of a million pilgrims a year. Ibex, urial and marsh crocodiles live in the park, along with some 185 species of birds.
Getting there
The Princess of Hope stands beside the Makran Coastal Highway in Lasbela District, roughly 190 km from Karachi. The town of Bela is about 133 km away. The nearest major airport is Jinnah International Airport (KHI) in Karachi, about 194 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Princess of Hope is a natural rock formation in the Hingol National Park of Lasbela in Balochistan, Pakistan. It is of the type known as a hoodoo or "fairy chimney" and which could fancifully be construed as resembling a crowned and skirted female figure looking toward the horizon. It is situated approximately 190 km (120 mi) from Pakistan's financial hub, Karachi, and approximately 717 km (446 mi) from the provincial capital, Quetta.
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