Lahore is the cultural capital of Pakistan and the largest Punjabi city in the world.
It holds the Lahore Fort, the Badshahi Mosque, the Wazir Khan Mosque, the Shalimar Gardens, Jahangir's tomb, the samadhi of Ranjit Singh Ji, Data Darbar, the shrine of Madho Lal Hussain, the Lahore Museum, Government College, the National College of Arts and the Punjab Archives.
Its Sikh-period fabric, the gurdwaras, the havelis of the sardars and the samadhi, is substantial and largely uncatalogued.
The Walled City of Lahore Authority has carried out significant conservation work since 2012, including on the Wazir Khan Mosque and the Shahi Hammam, which is more sustained heritage work than anything in Indian Punjab.
Amritsar is fifty kilometres away. The two cities were one urban system for centuries and now have no road, rail or trade link.
Everything in Punjabi culture that is not agricultural came out of Lahore, and Indian Punjab has spent seventy-eight years without it.
Its institutions were the ones an entire region used: the university, the medical college, the museum, the film industry, the newspapers, the publishing houses and the courts.
Its Sikh period buildings include the samadh of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji, Gurdwara Dera Sahib, the havelis of the sardars, and the Hazuri Bagh baradari, which was built out of material taken from other buildings.
Indian Punjabis reach it, when they reach it, on a visa for a named shrine and a fixed number of days. Almost nobody from this side has simply walked around the city.