The Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area is the fourth-largest metropolitan area of Pakistan, after Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad. It consists of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Islamabad is the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city with a population of over 1.2 million people and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s and established in 1967, it replaced Karachi as Pakistan's official national capital.