Abbottabad (pop. 105,459) is a resort city in northern Pakistan. It lies in a valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province). It is northeast of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
The British founded Abbottabad in 1853. At that time, the region was part of British-controlled India. The city was established as a cantonment, a British military station and colonial settlement. The old cantonment section of the city has British architecture and tree-lined streets. In 1947, shortly after Pakistan became an independent nation, the Pakistan Military Academy was founded in the town of Kakul, now part of Abbottabad.
In May 2011, United States military forces killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden at a private compound in Abbottabad. The compound was made up of several buildings surrounded by a concrete wall. The fact that bin Laden had been hiding in Abbottabad, likely since 2006, strained relations between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistani officials had long denied rumors that bin Laden was hiding in their country.
