Tehsil
Kot Addu
1,686 km² · 1,072,180 people (2023 census)
City
A kot on the Indus, then a district on the map
Kot Addu is a river town that became a district capital. The name is straightforward: a kot raised by Addu Khan. The story since then is canals, rail, power plants, and a 2022 map change that finally put the city’s name on a district board.
The name is the story in miniature. Kot means a fortified town; Addu is the Mirani chief credited with founding it around 1500. This page gathers the city’s history, the 2022 district, notable people, civic services, and census facts.
History
From Adduda Kot to headquarters
c. 1500
A walled kot
Addu Khan, of the Mirani line associated with Ghazi Khan, established a defensive settlement. The place was known as Adduda Kot — a kot (fortified town) named for Addu. A bastion wall was built to protect inhabitants on the exposed Indus plain.
Mughal era – 1849
Imperial fringe
The region sat on the southern Punjab frontier of the Mughal world. Afghan Pashtun administrators were among those appointed to govern it before Sikh and then British control.
1849–1947
British Punjab
After 1849 the area was folded into colonial Punjab. Canal colonization and the railway later stitched Kot Addu into the Indus irrigation grid that still defines the district.
1947 onward
Tehsil of Muzaffargarh
After independence Kot Addu remained a tehsil of Muzaffargarh District. The city grew with canals, the rail junction, sugar, and — from the 1980s — thermal power on the river.
August 2010
The Indus breaks the plain
Pakistan’s worst modern flood peaked at Taunsa Barrage on 2 August — about 960,000 cusecs, above the 1958 record. The Left Marginal Bund breached; water poured into the Muzaffargarh Canal and Taunsa–Panjnad link. Kot Addu town, Mahmood Kot, Ghazi Ghat, and cropland between the canal and the river went under. Around Daira Din Panah some 30,000 people were marooned. Floodwater cut the PARCO oil supply, so the river-side power plants at Kot Addu, Lalpir and PakGen were badly disrupted. The memory still shapes how people read monsoon years.
2022–2024
A district of its own
Punjab announced Kot Addu District in October 2022, splitting it from Muzaffargarh, and formally notified it in December 2024. The city is the headquarters. Administration sits in Dera Ghazi Khan Division, with two tehsils: Kot Addu and Chowk Sarwar Shaheed.
District
Kot Addu District, since 2022
This was a tehsil of Muzaffargarh until Punjab announced a separate district in October 2022; it was formally notified in December 2024. The new district recognised a region that already had its own rail junction, energy plants, and canal command. Headquarters: this city. Division: Dera Ghazi Khan.
Tehsil
Chowk Sarwar Shaheed
1,785 km² · 414,578 people (2023 census)
Punjab
Administration
1,486,758 people across 3,471 km². Area code 066.
Union councils
Commonly published names for the old tehsil / current district. Boundaries can shift; this is orientation, not a legal roll.
- Haider Ghazi
- Bait Qaimwala
- Bhari Hoog
- Budh
- Chak No. 547/TDA
- Chak No. 565/TDA
- Chak No. 632/TDA
- Chowk Sarwar Shaheed
- Daira Din Panah
- Dogar Kalasra
- Ghazi Ghatt
- Hinjrai
- Ehsanpur
- Kot Addu No. 1
- Kot Addu No. 2
- Kot Addu No. 3
- Manhan Sharif
- Mehmood Kot
- Mirpur Bhagal
- Pattal Monda
- Pattal Kot Addu
- Patti Ghulam Ali
- Sanawan
- Shadi Khan Monda
- Sheikh Umer
- Thatha Gurmani
- Gujrat
- Wahandur
- Pirhar
- Chalarrwala
- Noor Shah
- Basti Sirai
- Alu Rid
People
Voices from the river districts
Culture
Saraiki country
Roughly four in five people in Kot Addu District speak Saraiki. It is the language of the canal plain, the bazaar, and the kafi — not a footnote on a census table.
The voice of the south
Pathanay Khan
Saraiki folk and Sufi singer · 1926–2000
Born Ghulam Muhammad, he became the voice most tied to Saraiki kafi, singing the poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Shah Hussain and other Sufi poets. Radio Pakistan Multan made him known; he received the Pride of Performance in 1979. Every March, Kot Addu marks his death anniversary.
Birthplaces in this belt are argued over. The notes stay conservative: people with a widely reported tie to the city, the district, or the tehsil that preceded it.
More names from the district
Sufi saint · Mughal era, by tradition
Din Panah
Tradition names him Syed Abdul Wahab Shah Bukhari. His domed tomb, faced in blue and white tiles, is the spiritual landmark of the district; the 1908 district gazetteer records that Hindus and Muslims alike revered it. An annual fair is held at the shrine. His life is known through legend rather than records.
Religious scholar; chairman, Municipal Committee Kot Addu · d. 2022
Mufti Abdul Jalil
As head (muhtamim) of Jamia Mazahir-ul-Uloom, he oversaw a network of around 110 Quran-teaching branches across Kot Addu and nearby areas. He served as chairman of the Kot Addu Municipal Committee and twice contested the Punjab Assembly. His funeral was held at Government High School Kot Addu.
Islamic scholar, author and physician · 1792–1824 (1206–1239 AH)
Allama Abdul Aziz Parharvi
Studied under his father, Hafiz Ahmad, and Khwaja Muhammad Jamal Multani of the Chishti Nizami order. In a life of barely thirty-three years he wrote on Quranic exegesis, hadith, theology, astronomy and medicine; his commentary al-Nibras is still taught, and his medical works include al-Iksir. His urs is held each Dhul Hijjah.
Towns
Towns of the district
Beyond Kot Addu itself: the shrine town of Daira Din Panah, the tehsil headquarters at Chowk Sarwar Shaheed, the refinery at Mehmood Kot, and Sanawan on the river.
Tehsil Kot Addu · 37,644
Daira Din Panah
The shrine town north of Kot Addu, named after the saint whose blue-tiled tomb stands at its centre.
About Daira Din Panah →
Headquarters of Tehsil Chowk Sarwar Shaheed · 63,421
Chowk Sarwar Shaheed
Once Chowk Munda, now the headquarters of the district's second tehsil — a growing town in citrus country.
About Chowk Sarwar Shaheed →
Tehsil Kot Addu
Mehmood Kot
An old fort town that became the oil junction of the district: PARCO's Mid-Country Refinery, tanker depots and oil trains.
About Mehmood Kot →
Tehsil Kot Addu · 40,593
Sanawan
A low-lying river town south of Kot Addu — home ground of the Khar family and the Fatima sugar mill, and often the first place the Indus floods.
About Sanawan →Economy
Power on the river, cane on the plain
Kot Addu’s national name is energy and sugar. The same canals that water mango and citrus also feed the mills.
Economy →Civic
Schools, college, and the DHQ
Health
DHQ Hospital Kot Addu
DHQ Hospital Kot Addu (formerly THQ) is the main public facility for the city and surrounding union councils — gate on the main road, HIMS registration and triage counters inside, and smaller clinics across the district for everyday care.
Technical
Govt. College of Technology (GCT)
GCT Kot Addu trains technicians for the industrial belt around the river — a practical counterpart to the degree colleges.
Higher secondary / degree
Degree colleges
Government and private colleges serve men and women. Several campuses are affiliated with Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, and the University of the Punjab.
Schooling
Schools
The city has a dense private-school market alongside government schools, including well-known Punjab Group, Dar-e-Arqam, and other chains with local campuses.
Facts
Numbers that hold still
Some older city pages publish impossible population counts. Figures here follow Pakistan Bureau of Statistics census series.
City population
| 1951 | 10,507 |
| 1961 | 13,107 |
| 1972 | 21,409 |
| 1981 | 37,479 |
| 1998 | 80,720 |
| 2017 | 129,703 |
| 2023 | 142,161 |
District population
| 1951 | 143,009 |
| 1961 | 184,639 |
| 1972 | 313,137 |
| 1981 | 449,493 |
| 1998 | 808,438 |
| 2017 | 1,347,501 |
| 2023 | 1,486,758 |
- Coordinates
- 30.47°N, 70.96°E
- Elevation
- 133 m
- Climate
- Arid
- Postal code
- 34050
- Area code
- 066
- Best visit
- October to March
Languages (district, 2023)
- Saraiki — about 80% of the district
- Punjabi — about 12%
- Urdu — about 5%
- Pashto — about 3%
Very hot summers, mild winters, dust storms, and a short monsoon. Land near Taunsa Barrage can flood.