The Fruit Basket of Pakistan — the Balochistan capital in a high valley at 1,680 m where dried fruit and nut bazaars overflow with almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates from the surrounding orchards, the Hanna Lake shimmer between brown desert mountains, and Afghan refugees have made this one of Pakistan's most cosmopolitan bazaar cities
Quetta is the capital of Balochistan Province — Pakistan's largest province by area (44% of Pakistan's land), historically a crossroads of trade routes between Central Asia, Iran, and South Asia. Sitting in the Quetta Valley at 1,680 m altitude between limestone ridges, the city has a cool, crisp climate remarkable for its latitude (comparable to Kabul) — summers are mild, winters cold and sometimes snowy. Quetta's most famous characteristic is its dried fruit and nut production: the surrounding Balochistan valleys grow some of the world's finest apricots, pomegranates, apples, cherries, grap…
The Quetta area has been on the trade route between the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia and Iran since at least the Bronze Age — caravans moving between the Indus Valley and the Iranian plateau passed through the Bolan Pass (70 km south of Quetta), one of the most historically important mountain passes in South Asian history (it was the main route for the Aryan migrations c. 2000–1500 BCE, Alexander the Great's army in 325 BCE, and countless subsequent invaders and traders). The Khanate of Kalat (the Baloch confederacy) controlled Quetta and the surrounding highlands until the First Angl…