Kallar Kahar Lake

A lake in the Salt Range

Kallar Kahar Lake lies in Chakwal district in the Salt Range of Pakistan’s Punjab. The district government describes it as a saltwater lake in a valley surrounded by hills and identifies it as a place visited for recreation. Its water level and the extent of vegetation can vary, so a published area or depth should be treated as a measurement from a particular time. The lake is part of a broader landscape of springs, settlements and agricultural land. It is useful to distinguish the lake from Kallar Kahar town and from other Salt Range lakes when reading environmental or travel accounts.[1]

Birds and monitoring

A 2026 review by Amna Azeem Butt and colleagues brings together published research on Kallar Kahar’s birds and conservation. It describes the lake as brackish and spring-fed and reports a 2011 survey that recorded resident and migratory species. The authors also identify gaps in recent site-wide monitoring and discuss changes in open water and pollution reported by earlier studies. A historical bird count shows what was recorded during that survey, not an assurance that every species remains present today. The review distinguishes Kallar Kahar from the separately designated Uchhali Ramsar complex.[2]

Part of a wider wetland landscape

A management plan hosted by the Ramsar Convention groups Kallar Kahar with other wetlands along the Salt Range, while identifying Uchhali, Khabekki and Jahlar as the three lakes of the designated Uchhali Wetlands Complex. The distinction matters: belonging to the wider landscape does not automatically give Kallar Kahar the same Ramsar designation. The plan discusses waterbirds and pressures including siltation and domestic pollution. It is an older planning document, so present conditions and protection arrangements should be checked against more recent evidence. Conservation requires attention to the catchment and surrounding land as well as the open water.[3]

The Ramsar Sites Information Service lists the designated Uchhali Complex as three lakes: Uchhali, Khabbaki and Jahlar. Its entry records a 22 March 1996 designation and identifies the latest underlying site information as 1996. Kallar Kahar does not appear in that list of the complex’s lakes; the wider Salt Range wetland landscape and this particular designation are different geographical descriptions.[4]