Mardan District

Mardan is the crowded Yusufzai plain between Peshawar and Swabi, with the hills of Katlang and Rustam on the north toward Buner and Ambela. The city is the division headquarters. The land is canal-and-tube-well farm country: sugarcane, tobacco, wheat and the mills that sit on the Nowshera–Mardan–Swabi road.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics 2023 counted 2,744,898 people in 400,859 households. About 453,000 are urban; about 2.29 million are rural. Literacy is 55.79 percent overall — 68.31 percent for men, 42.66 percent for women. Area is about 1,632 square kilometres. Pashto is the everyday language of almost the whole district.

Older planning papers still talk of three tehsils. The 2023 table used here has five: Mardan, Takht Bhai, Katlang, Rustam and Ghari Kapura (Garhi Kapura).

Three largest named places

1. Mardan city — municipal council around 364,000 in 2023 compilations, plus a small cantonment. Courts, AWKUM, the medical complex and the main bazaar.
2. Takht Bhai — second town. Municipal figures near 85,000. UNESCO monastery of Takht-i-Bahi stands above the houses.
3. Katlang — tehsil headquarters on the north side, 377,535 people in the whole tehsil. Highest literacy of the five tehsils in the 2023 table (about 61.5 percent).

Five tehsils (PBS 2023)

• Mardan — 335 km², 1,040,893 people, literacy about 56.4 percent. The city and the inner plain.
• Takht Bhai — 353 km², 727,478 people, literacy about 56 percent.
• Katlang — 422 km², 377,535 people, literacy about 61.5 percent.
• Ghari Kapura — 143 km², 319,465 people, literacy about 51.7 percent.
• Rustam — 379 km², 279,527 people, literacy about 50 percent. North toward the Buner passes.

Union-council counts have moved with each local-government act. This page lists towns and villages that already sit on maps, TMAs and school lists. It does not invent a complete patwari register.

Mardan tehsil and the city belt

Mardan city, Hoti, Toru, Bakhshali, Palo Dheri, Sheikh Maltoon Town, the cantonment, and the villages on the canal roads out toward Swabi and Nowshera.

Takht Bhai

Takht Bhai town, Lund Khwar, Shergarh, Hathian, and the villages under the monastery ridge. Jamal Garhi and Sawal Dher are the other well-known archaeological names in this belt.

Katlang

Katlang, Mian Khan, and the hill-foot villages that look toward Buner.

Ghari Kapura

Garhi Kapura / Ghari Kapura and the dense rural councils of this small tehsil.

Rustam

Rustam town and the villages on the old road that climbs toward Ambela and Chamla. This is the Mardan side of the pass that Buner people use.

Schools and hospitals

Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM) is the degree name students use. Mardan Medical Complex / the teaching hospital is the main public referral for the division. Government colleges sit in the city and in Takht Bhai and Katlang. Girls’ secondary enrolment is stronger here than in the high valleys, but the 42.66 percent female literacy figure is still the honest line.

Work and heritage

Sugar mills, cigarette leaf, grain markets and the workshop road toward Nowshera pay a large share of wages. Takht-i-Bahi is the site that brings visitors who never stop in the city bazaar. The ruins need a page that says “protected monument”, not a picnic caption.

Sources: PBS 2023 district and tehsil tables; Government of KP District Mardan; TMA Takht Bhai public pages; named-settlement lists. Last checked August 2026.