Kartarpur Sahib
The town Guru Nanak founded on the Ravi after his travels. He farmed here, ran a common kitchen and died here in 1539. A visa-free corridor from India opened in 2019.
Kartarpur, 'the town of the Creator', on the west bank of the Ravi in Narowal district, was founded by Guru Nanak around 1522 after his long journeys. He lived here for the last seventeen years of his life as a farmer, and here the first Sikh community took shape: daily singing of the hymns, a common kitchen, and honest work in the fields.
Here he chose Lehna as his successor and died in 1539. Legend says his Hindu and Muslim followers argued over his body and found only flowers, which they divided; Gurdwara Darbar Sahib holds both a samadhi and a grave. The original settlement was washed away by the river, and the gurdwara was rebuilt in the 1920s by the Maharaja of Patiala.
After 1947 it lay just four kilometres inside Pakistan, and for seventy years Sikhs could only gaze at its white dome through binoculars from a platform at Dera Baba Nanak. In November 2019 the Kartarpur Corridor opened, allowing Indian pilgrims to walk across without a visa. The gurdwara is now set in a vast new marble complex.
People
Founder of Sikhi. A poet and teacher who rejected caste and empty ritual and taught devotion to one formless God through the Name, honest work and sharing.
Muslim rabab player and Guru Nanak's lifelong companion on his journeys. Three of his saloks are in the Guru Granth Sahib.
Wife of Guru Nanak, married at Batala, and mother of Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das.
Artifacts
On the timeline
The Kartarpur Corridor
Four kilometres across the borderScroll sideways to see the whole figure →
The corridor opened on 9 November 2019, for Guru Nanak's 550th birth anniversary, letting Indian pilgrims visit without a visa. India suspended it on 7 May 2025, after the Pahalgam attack, and it remained shut in 2026. Schematic, not to scale.