Pakistan · Punjab Province
Where to Stay in Bahawalpur, Punjab Province
Bahawalpur is a city of southern Punjab in Pakistan, the old seat of a princely state, a town of ornate palaces on the edge of the Cholistan desert.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Bahawalpur
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
In Bahawalpur the choice runs between the nawabi town and the Cholistan sands. The streets around the centre keep the palaces, the museum, and the bazaars within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city and its palaces. The nawabi domes rise over the trees.
Gardens ring the old town. Out toward the Cholistan and the forts, the town gives way to the red dunes, the desert forts, and the camel camps. A room out toward the sands trades the streets for the great Derawar Fort, the dune country, and the shrines of the desert.
The sands run red to the sky. Stay downtown for the palaces, or out for the desert. Only a short stretch of road separates the sands from the bazaars.
About Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur is the palace city of the Cholistan edge.
What is Bahawalpur known for?
On the plain between the Sutlej and the great Cholistan desert in southern Pakistan, it was the capital of the nawabs of Bahawalpur, and it keeps the ornate Noor Mahal palace of its princes, the huge square Derawar Fort out in the desert sands, an old town and a fine museum, and the camel country and shrines of the Cholistan around. The green plain runs to the desert. The sands stretch far beyond.
What are the main landmarks in Bahawalpur?
The Noor Mahal is the pride of Bahawalpur. The palace of the nawabs, a grand pile of arches, domes, and a fine facade set in gardens, stands in the town, the emblem of the city, at its heart. A great fort holds the desert.
The huge square Derawar Fort, with its forty round bastions of mud brick, rises from the Cholistan sands far to the south, while the old palaces, the museum, and the desert shrines mark the country around Bahawalpur.
What is the history of Bahawalpur?
Bahawalpur was a princely state. For two hundred years the Abbasi nawabs ruled a desert kingdom here from the edge of the Cholistan, holding the old forts that guarded the caravan roads across the sands. A dead river left the desert.
Long ago a great river ran through the Cholistan, and when it dried the land turned to dune, but a chain of mud forts still stood along its bed, the greatest of them Derawar. The nawabs built for splendour. Rich from the canals and the trade, the princes raised ornate palaces of arch and dome, the Noor Mahal chief among them, and made Bahawalpur a town of gardens and fine buildings.
The state joined Pakistan in time. When the princely days ended, Bahawalpur came into Pakistan and its palaces passed to the nation, yet the town kept its nawabi grace, its desert forts, and its Cholistan shrines, growing into a busy city of the south. The camels still cross the sands.
Bahawalpur keeps its palaces and its desert on the edge of the Cholistan.
Where is Bahawalpur?
Bahawalpur lies in the south of Punjab in Pakistan, on the plain between the Sutlej river and the Cholistan desert. The city sits at the edge of the sown land where the green irrigated fields give way to the red dunes of the Cholistan, on the old bank of the Sutlej, with canals and farms on one side and desert on the other. Green fields end in sand.
The desert runs red and dry.
What is the climate of Bahawalpur?
Bahawalpur sits under a desert sky, hot and dry. Scorching summers and mild winters hold on the plain, with fierce heat and dust in the long summer and cool nights in winter. The summer sun blazes down.
Once the sun drops in winter, the desert air goes cold.
How do you get to Bahawalpur?
Bahawalpur lies in southern Punjab in Pakistan, on the road and rail along the Sutlej. Trains and buses run to it down the river plain from Multan and Lahore, and desert tracks lead out to the forts. Jeeps cross the Cholistan sands.
Multan lies north up the line.
Good for
More cities in Punjab Province
Updated August 2026