The Gandhāran city of Taxila was an important Vedic and Buddhist centre of learning from the 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. UNESCO has listed 18 locations at Taxila as World Heritage Sites.
Taxila is located in the west of the Islamabad Capital Territory, to the northwest of Rawalpindi, on the border of the Punjab and North West Frontier Provinces, about thirty kilometres west-northwest of Islamabad, just off the Grand Trunk Road.
