Peshawar takes its name from the Sanskrit “Pushpapura”, meaning the city of flowers — its flowers were mentioned even in the memoirs of the Mughal Emperor Babur.
Alexander’s legions were held up here in 327 B.C. for forty days at a fort at Pushkalavati (lotus city), near Charsadda. Babur marched through the Khyber Pass in 1526 to conquer South Asia and found the Mughal Empire.
The Khyber Pass and the valley have resounded to the tramp of marching feet as successive armies came down this crossroad of history — a pathway of commerce, migration and invasion by Aryans, Scythians, Persians, Greeks, Bactrians, Kushans, Huns, Turks, Mongols and Mughals.
Peshawar is now, as always, very much a frontier town, where formality gives way to a free and easy style, a firm handclasp and a straight but friendly look.
Is Peshawar right for you?
- Suggested time
- 1 – 2 days
- Activity level
- Easy city sightseeing on foot and by car
- Best for
- Old bazaars, the Peshawar Museum and Gandhara history
Combines well withSwat ValleyChitral – Kafir Kalash
Compare Peshawar with another destination →Places to see
Mohabbat Khan Mosque
The finest surviving Mughal mosque in Peshawar, built in 1670 A.D. by Mohabbat Khan, governor under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
Bala Hisar Fort
The mighty fort on the approaches to the city, originally built by Babur in 1526–30 and rebuilt in its present form by the Sikh governor Hari Singh Nalwa in the 1830s.
Peshawar Museum
Housed in an imposing British-era building, with some of the finest Gandhara sculpture anywhere, alongside tribal, Muslim-period and ethnographic galleries.
Sethi Houses
Richly decorated merchant houses in Mohallah Sethian, with carved wooden doors, balconies, and mirrored and painted rooms.
Gor Khatri
A walled Mughal caravanserai on the highest point of the old city. Excavations here have uncovered layers of settlement going back more than two thousand years.
Qissa Khwani Bazaar
The “storytellers’ bazaar”, where travellers were once regaled with tales in the evening — now full of fruit stalls and famous Peshawari kebabs and tikkas sizzling on hot coals.
Islamia College
A landmark of red brick and white domes, founded in 1913, on the road towards the Khyber.
Good to know
- The old city
- Until the mid-1950s Peshawar was enclosed by a city wall with sixteen gates. The old houses, of unbaked brick set in wooden frames against earthquakes, have beautifully carved doors and ornamental wooden balconies.
- Bazaars
- Beyond Qissa Khwani lies the coppersmiths’ bazaar, its engraved jars, bowls and plates piled up like treasure. Other famous bazaars include the Khyber, Bird, Meena, Jewellery and Mochilara (shoemakers’) bazaars.
- What to eat
- Peshawar is famous for its chapli kebabs, its slow-cooked karahi and its green “kahwa” tea, served with cardamom in the tea houses of the old city.
- New Peshawar
- Across the railway line lies the Cantonment — a spacious, tree-lined township of wide roads, lawns and single-storey houses built by the British.
- Getting there
- By motorway or along the historic Grand Trunk Road from Islamabad, by train, or by air.
Header photo: Old houses in Qissa Khwani Bazaar — franek2, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons