Hingol National Park in Pakistan • Earth.com

Hingol National Park in Pakistan Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features Hingol National Park, one of the natural wonders of Pakistan.

The park has an area of 2,400 square miles across the Balochistan Province, and is known for its fascinating landscape with several distinct ecosystems.

On the coast, Hingol has beautiful beaches, caves, and diverse marine life including dolphins, sea turtles, and mangroves. Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the world’s fifth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212.2 million, and has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area, spanning 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). It has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Pakistan is the site of several ancient cultures, most notably the 8,500-year-old Neolithic site of Mehrgarh,

The park has an arid subtropical forest in the north, and mountains in the west. In the east, a group of volcanoes are famous for spewing methane and mud instead of lava. 

The Hingol River flows into an estuary that supports endangered fish, birds, and crocodiles. The region is also home to wild Sindh Ibex, Balochistan Urial, and Chinkara Gazelle.

The image was captured on February 13, 2021 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. 

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory 

By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

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