Pakistan is the sixth most populous country and has the world's second largest Muslim population after Indonesia. It also has the second largest Shia population. Pakistan is at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The country has 650 miles of coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east, and China in the far northeast. Tajikistan also lies very close to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. The region forming modern Pakistan encompassed the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and then, successively, recipient of ancient Vedic, Persian, Turco-Mongol, Indo-Greek and Islamic cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan