Bagh-e-Jinnah

Bagh-e-Jinnah (Urdu: باغ جناح ) (or Jinnah's Garden) is a historical park in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. It was formerly known asLawrence Gardens. Today, the large green space contains a botanical garden, a mosque, and Quaid-e-Azam Library^[1] situated in aVictorian building.

There are also entertainment and sports facilities within the park: an open-air theatre, a restaurant, tennis courts and the Gymkhana Cricket Ground. It is located on Lawrence Road next to Lahore Zoo, directly across from theGovernor's House on The Mall.

Past - Lawrence Gardens

Originally built as botanical garden modelled on Kew Gardens, it was named after John Lawrence, Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869.^[2]The place used to hold his statue, which was later moved to Foyle and Londonderry College in Northern Ireland.

A fountain in the Bagh-e-Jinnah park

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Present - Bagh-e-Jinnah

Jinnah Garden Lahore that is situated on 141 acres (0.57 km²) at this time, earlier it was in 176 acres (0.71 km²), but the land was given to Lahore zoo, botanical garden govt. college university Lahore and to roads alongside the garden. Now it is almost the plant area except roads building is 121 acres (0.49 km²). It is most beautiful and well managed botanical garden in Pakistan.

It has almost 150 varieties of trees, 140 types of shrubs, 50 types of creepers, 30 palms, almost 100 succulent and about same indoor along with almost all varieties of annual flowers. The garden has a good name in Chrysanthemum shows, it was the first institute that started growing chrysanthemum and maximum no of varieties for it. It has 3 nurseries, 4 hilloaks in it.

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Information and services

• Bagh-e-Jinnah has two libraries, Quaid-e-Azam library and Darusalam in it.
• Regarding collection of trees, shrubs and climbers a book has been published by Ch. Muhammad Tariq (DDA Jinnah Garden, Muhammad Ramzan Rafique (Agricultural Officer)and Dr. Muhammad Afzal (Instructor). (Flora of Jinnah Garden) This book contains common name, botanical name, flower time, type of plant(deciduous or evergreen), flowering color of each plant along with its picture. Furthermore this book contains selective pictures from palm garden, annual flowers in this garden. This book can be obtained from the office of Jinnah Garden.

• Bagh-e-Jinnah park hosts a famous cricket ground since 1885, built for the entertainment of government officers and civil servants.^[3]The ground maintained its Test Status from 1955 till 1959^[4] when the venue moved to Gaddafi Stadium.
• The park receives a nostalgic mention of the 1970s and 1980s life in Bano Qudsia's remarkable urdu novel Raja Gidh.
• The Park has a Tomb of Shia' Sufi Known as Baba Turat Muraad Shah, with a heavy number of visitors.

     

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