India–Pakistan border

Five weeks to divide Punjab

Britain's Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act on 18 July 1947. It created India and Pakistan as two dominions and required the line between them by midnight on 14–15 August.^[3] Punjab, with a slim Muslim majority, was to be split into a West Punjab for Pakistan and an East Punjab for India.^[3]

The job went to Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer who had never been to India. He chaired a Punjab boundary commission of two Congress Party and two Muslim League members, with the aim of keeping Muslim-majority areas in Pakistan and Hindu-majority areas in India.^[3] He had just over five weeks, old census figures and poor maps.^[3] The Punjab line he drew was 553 km (344 miles) long.^[3]

The award was not published until 17 August 1947, two days after independence.^[3] The line ran through villages, towns and fields. Around 15 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fled across it, and as many as 2 million people were killed, although estimates vary widely.^[3] It also cut Punjab's irrigation system in two, leaving headworks in India and canals in Pakistan. The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, brokered by the World Bank, set out each country's rights to the waters of the Indus river system.^[3]

Kashmir: a ceasefire line, not a border

Under the 1947 partition scheme, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir could join either country. Its accession to India became a dispute, and fighting broke out later that year.^[6] The Karachi Agreement of 27 July 1949 fixed a ceasefire line, watched by UN military observers.^[6]

After the war of 1971, which began in East Pakistan and ended with the creation of Bangladesh, a ceasefire took effect on 17 December 1971.^[6] In the Simla Agreement of 2 July 1972 both sides agreed to respect the resulting “line of control”, which mostly follows the 1949 line.^[5][6] India takes the view that the UN observers' mandate lapsed with the old ceasefire line. Pakistan does not accept that, and the observers remain.^[6]

The Line of Control runs about 740 km, from Akhnoor to a point called NJ 9842. Beyond it, in the Siachen region, a 110 km “Actual Ground Position Line” marks where Indian and Pakistani troops actually stand.^[1] The 1999 Kargil War was fought in the Kargil sector, on the Indian-administered side of the line.^[3] South of the Line of Control, India calls the Jammu stretch part of the international border. Pakistan calls it the “Working Boundary”, to signal that it considers Jammu and Kashmir disputed.^[1]

“In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the cease-fire of December 17, 1971 shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognized position of either side.”^[5]

The Rann of Kutch and Sir Creek

The southern end follows older lines. The Rann of Kutch is a salt marsh of about 8,000 square miles that floods from roughly June to November.^[4] The Rann lay between the British province of Sind and the princely state of Kutch. A 1913–14 settlement between them, partly marked on the ground in 1923–24, set the line in the west.^[4] In 1947 Sind went to Pakistan and Kutch joined India.^[4]

Pakistan raised the rest of the Rann in 1948, and fighting broke out there in 1965.^[4] Pakistan claimed a line roughly along latitude 24°N, through the middle of the Rann. India said the border ran along its northern shore.^[4] A three-judge tribunal ruled on 19 February 1968. By a majority it drew a compromise line close to the northern shore, but gave Pakistan two inlets beside Nagar Parkar.^[4]

Sir Creek, the tidal channel at the western end, was left out of that case.^[2] India says the boundary runs down the middle of the creek. Pakistan says it follows the eastern bank, so the whole creek is Pakistani. The answer decides where the sea boundary starts, and several rounds of talks have not settled it.^[2]

Crossing points

In November 2019 a 4.1 km fenced corridor opened from India to the Sikh shrine at Kartarpur, just inside Pakistan. It let Indian pilgrims cross without a visa for the first time in 72 years.^[7] After an attack killed at least 26 people at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in April 2025, India closed its border with Pakistan and Pakistan announced border closures of its own.^[8]