With over 14 million people, Karachi is Pakistan's largest city.
Its crowded suburbs and slums have sprawled away from the port, but the city's main roads still radiate out from where ships arriving from the Arabian sea unload their cargoes.
At the southern end of the harbor, two spits of land curl together to enclose a protected inlet. The western spit of land holds the naval yards and the main container port; on the eastern, larger spit, there are the oil terminals and the dense settlements of Shireen Jinnah Colony and Kiamari.
From the air, both sides manifest a peculiar geometry of tightly serried rectangles – with thousands of shipping containers and hundreds of parked oil tankers, many of which will eventually make the long overland journey to Afghanistan.
- Document