From Lyallpur to Faisalabad: the City of Eight Bazaars

Standing tall in the heart of the city with eight arteries, the 'Faisalabad's Clock Tower' narrates the saga of a century-old civilisation of Rachna Doaba (the land falling within two rivers).

The city of magnificent eight bazaars formerly known as "Lyallpur" named after Sir James Lyall, the then Lt Governor of Punjab, is the third-largest city of Pakistan after Karachi and Lahore.

The distinctive presence of the clock tower and eight bazaars reveals its conscious design synonymous with the Union Jack.

The Plateau of Rachna Doaba was barren land having low rainfall and owing to its geographical dynamics, it remained uninhabited since 1,800. Later, it provided an abode for freedom fighters waging a struggle against the British colonial regime. Tough resistance to the occupied regime made the British rule conceive an idea in the late 1,800s to colonise this region with multiple political, economic and administrative objectives and the task was assigned to James Lyall.