The divisions do not include the Islamabad Capital Territory or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which were counted at the same level as provinces, but in 2018, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas were subsumed into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and allocated to neighbouring divisions therein.

At independence in 1947, the new nation of Pakistan comprised two wings – eastern and western, separated by India.

The single province in the eastern wing, East Bengal, had four divisions – Chittagong, Dacca, Khulna and Rajshahi.

The North-West Frontier Province (as it was then called) had two divisions – Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar.

The Federal Capital Territory was absorbed into West Pakistan in 1959 and in 1960 merged with the district of Las Bela to form the Karachi-Bela Division.

In 1969, the princely states of Chitral, Dir and Swat were incorporated into West Pakistan as the division of Malakand with Saidu as the divisional headquarters.

This meant devolution of many functions, to districts and tehsils, which were previously handled at the provincial and divisional levels.

At abolition, there were twenty-six divisions in Pakistan proper – five in Sindh, six in Balochistan, seven in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and eight in Punjab.

[3] In Sindh after the lapse of the Local Governments Bodies term in 2010 the Divisional Commissioners system was to be restored.

As a consequence, the five divisions of Sindh have been restored namely, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana with their respective districts.