Carved out of the Muzaffargarh district in 1982, Layyah is one of the least industrialised regions of Punjab and derives its name from wild fuelwood known as Layyan in the local diction.
Lying between the mighty Indus and Chenab rivers in Sindh Sagar Doab, it contains three agro-ecological zones — creek and low lands in the west that are inundated by floods by Indus, the irrigated tract of Thal’s fertile plains appropriate for growing wheat, rice and sugarcane, and the sandy Thal desert suitable mainly for gram (chickpea) crop.
With a population of 1.824 million as per the 2017 census, the total cultivated area in the district is over 1.12m acres, of which 0.83m acres are irrigated and 0.18m acres are barani (rain-fed) area. There are over 0.539m acres of uncultivated land, around 60,000 acres of culturable waste and about 0.5m acres of unculturable land.