Jalandhar sits in the Doaba, between the Beas and the Sutlej, the district block that has sent more people abroad than any other part of Punjab.
Before Partition Muslims were 59 per cent of Jalandhar city and cantonment. In 1941 Muslims were about 38.4 per cent of what is now Indian Punjab, some 3.75 million people. After 1947 roughly 90,000 remained, about 0.5 per cent. The 2011 census counted 535,489 Muslims in Punjab, about 1.93 per cent.
Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, the Ghadar movement's own memorial and archive, is in the city.
In villages around Jalandhar and Kapurthala, at Ramidi, Hambowal and Muddowal, walled villas stand empty. Ramidi has at least fifty vacant kothis. Sukhjeet Singh owns a twelve-room, 20,000 square foot bungalow there and lives in America. Harmandeep Singh Bal owns a larger one and lives in Canada, with his mother as caretaker.
Jalandhar's sports goods industry supplies cricket bats, hockey sticks and balls to the world. It grew out of the loss of Sialkot, which had been the centre of the trade and went to Pakistan.
The city is the base of the Punjabi press, the Punjabi television channels and a large part of the Punjabi music business.
Its cantonment is old and its position on the Grand Trunk Road between Ludhiana and Amritsar has made it the administrative centre of the Doaba since the British period.