Khewra Salt Mine

The Khewra Salt Mine is located in Khewra, north of Pind Dadan Khan, an administrative subdivision of Jhelum District, Punjab Region, Pakistan. The mine is located in the Salt Range, Potowar pleateau, which rises from the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Khewra is Pakistan’s largest, the world’s 2nd largest salt min.

The mine is famous for its production of pink Khewra salt, and is a major tourist attraction, drawing up to 250,000 visitors a year. Its history dates back to its discovery by Alexander’s troops in 320 BC, but it started trading in the Mughal era. The main tunnel at ground level was developed by Dr. H. Warth, a mining engineer in 1872 during British rule.

After independence, the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation took over the mine, which still remains the largest source of salt in the country, producing more than 350,000 tons per annum of about 99% pure halite.

Estimates of the reserves of salt in the mine vary from 82 million tons to 600 million tons.

Situated at the foothills of the Salt Range, Khewra Salt Mines are the oldest in the salt mining history of the sub-continent. Salt occurs in the form of an irregular dome like structure. There are seven thick salt seams with cumulative thickness of about 150 meters. At places rock salt is 99% pure. Salt is transparent, white, pink, reddish to beef-color red. In certain horizons it is crystalline. Inside the mine there are beautiful alternate bands of red and white color salt. There are 18 working levels. Cumulative length of all drivages is more than 40 km.

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