Why it looks like this

Multan is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities of South Asia — it was already ancient when Alexander was wounded storming a fortress here. Centuries of rebuilding raised the old city on its own debris, so the walled town sits on a mound, ringed by the line of its vanished walls and gates.

The city's fame is spiritual: it became a great centre of Sufi saints, whose blue-tiled shrines dominate the skyline — above all the tomb of Rukn-e-Alam (1320s), one of the masterpieces of pre-Mughal architecture, standing at the summit of the mound where the fortress once was.