Rohtas Fort

Rohtas Fort stands on a hill above the Kahan River near Dina in Jhelum District, built beginning in 1541 by Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan ruler who had temporarily displaced the Mughal emperor Humayun from power in northern India. The fort was intended to control the strategic Grand Trunk Road route between Kabul and Lahore and to hold down the Gakhar tribes of the Potohar region, who remained loyal to the Mughals. Construction, overseen by Sher Shah's governor Todar Mal Khatri, was largely complete by 1543, though Sher Shah himself never occupied it before his death that year. The fort's walls run for roughly 4 kilometers and rise up to 18 meters high in places, built of ashlar sandstone with 68 bastions and twelve monumental gateways, of which the Sohail Gate and Shah Chandwali Gate are the best preserved. Inside, the Rani Mahal, a small Mughal-era pavilion, and the Shahi Mosque represent later additions after the fort passed to Mughal control. Because the terrain and river made a full water-filled moat impractical, the fort's builders relied on its scale, thick walls, and elevated position for defense rather than siege engineering common elsewhere. The fort was never taken by force and saw only limited later use, which contributed to its unusually complete survival compared with many contemporary South Asian fortifications. A small village has grown up within the fort walls over subsequent centuries. Conservation work, including projects supported by the Norwegian government and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture since the 2000s, has focused on stabilizing sections of the Sohail Gate and outer walls. Rohtas Fort was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, recognized as an outstanding example of Muslim military architecture blending Central Asian and South Asian traditions.