Etymology

The name Pakistan literally means Land of (the) Pure in Urdu and Persian. It was coined in 1933 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never.[10] Figuratively, the name is an acronym representing the "thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN" — referring to the names of the five northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, viz.: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir,Sind, and Baluchistan".[11][12][13] The letter 'i' became the defacto addition to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct name.[14]