Pakistan, Aug. 3 -- In Pakistan's first Economic Summit on July 29-30, 2026, Mohsin Naqvi, Federal Minister for Interior, called for the creation of new provinces or administrative units to improve the governance system. Although this is not a new demand, it has become increasingly relevant. However, the trillion-dollar question is: how should these provinces be demarcated, and what would the consequences of such demarcation be?

To answer the first question, we need to revisit history. India had 17 provinces in 1947, but today it has 28 states and eight union territories. Pakistan, by contrast, has had only four provinces since independence. The one-unit arrangement initially helped keep the newly established country united by reducing a...