Afghanistan

Kingdom of Afghanistan افغانستان واکمنان‎ (Pashto) Dǝ Afġānistān wākmanān
Flag Coat of Arms
Anthem: Šâhe Ğažur o Mehrabane Ma "Our Brave and Noble King"
Capital	Kabul
Official languages	Pashto, Dari
Recognised regional languages	Balochi, Uzbek, Tajik
Ethnic groups (2014)	Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazara, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs
Demonym(s)	Afghan
Government	Unitary constitutional monarchy
• King	Hafizullah Khan
• Crown Prince	Zubair Khan
• Prime Minister	Asadullah Malikyar
Legislature	National Assembly
• Upper house	House of Elders
• Lower house	House of the People
Establishment
• Emirate founded	1823
• Afghan conflict begins	14 July 1977
• Collapse of the Communist regime	20 April 1990
• Monarchy re-established	7 October 1995
Population
• 2017 estimate	58,532,118
GDP (PPP)	2017 estimate
• Total	$203.79 billion
GDP (nominal)	2017 estimate
• Total	$77.26 billion
Gini (2016)	27.8 low · low
HDI (2017)	0.498 low
Currency	Afghani (AFN)
Time zone	UTC+4:30
Date format	dd-mm-yyyy
Driving side	left
Calling code	+93

This country is part of Makerverse.

Afghanistan (Pashto/Dari: افغانستان, Pashto: Afġānistān; Dari: Afġānestān), officially the Kingdom of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Pakistan to the south and east, China to the east, the Union of Sovereign States to the north, and Iran to the west. A unitary constitutional monarchy, Afghanistan is divided into eleven provinces, including the capital city-province of Kabul. Afghanistan has been a geostrategically important location throughout history and because of that it was occupied by numerous peoples. The Pashtuns are the single biggest ethnic group and represent about two-thirds of the country's approximately 58.53 million people, followed by Hazaras and Tajiks, and 99 percent of the population are Muslim. The majority of Afghanistan's terrain is mountainous or desert.

Settled life emerged in what are now Afghanistan and adjoining areas 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilization of the third millennium BCE. Indus civilization's archaeological sites were discovered on the Amu Darya at Shortugai and in Kandahar Province at Mundigak; the latter flourished during the Bronze Age Helmand culture. Indo-Aryans migrated through Bactria-Margiana area to Gandhara, followed by the rise of the Iron Age Yaz I culture (ca. 1500–1100 BCE), which has been closely associated with the culture depicted in the Avesta, the ancient religious texts of Zoroastrianism. Because of its location in Central Asia the country was populated by different peoples and occupied by many empires throughout its history, including Achaemind Persians, the Greeks of Alexander the Great, Mauryan Indians, Mongols, Muslim Arabs, British, and the Soviets. Because many of the invasions failed Afghanistan has been described as the "graveyard of empires" and "unconquerable."

The modern state of Afghanistan came into existence in the 18th century under the Hotak dynasty, whose founder Mirwais Hotak declared southern Afghanistan an independent state in 1709, which became the Durrani Empire in 1747. By the late 19th century the country was poor and technologically backward, becoming a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire during the imperial rivalry between the two powers. Afghanistan became a British protectorate briefly from 1880 until the expulsion of the British during the 1919 Anglo-Afghan War, becoming an independent monarchy under Amanullah Khan. But it was invaded in 1923 by the Bolshevik Red Army, concurrently with the Russian Civil War, and they helped establish the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1925. It remained a Soviet satellite state until an insurgency broke out against the Communist government in 1977 by mujahideen rebels and Afghan nationalists, leading to an intervention by the Soviet Army that lasted until the end of the Cold War. After the Revolutions of 1989, the Afghan Communist government fell and an Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was created in 1990, beginning the country's transition to a multi-party semi-presidential republic, a new constitution, and a market economy.

Fighting continued between different factions with the early 1990s becoming characterized by a state of anarchy and chaos, so a monarchy was restored in 1995 with Hafizullah Khan as king in an effort to reunify and stabilize the country. A civil war between the Afghan government and Islamist groups continued into the late 1990s. Following the 9/11 attacks on North American countries in September 2001 the Union of American States and other NATO countries intervened in Afghanistan with thousands of troops in support the government to eliminate the Islamist terrorist groups. The Islamists, most notably the Taliban, have retained control over large portions of Afghanistan since then, but since 2017 the majority of Afghanistan has been under government control. The ongoing war between the government and the Taliban has contributed to human rights abuses and killings of civilians. Starting in the fall of 2018, negotiations between the warring factions to end the conflict have been ongoing, with the implementation of a peace agreement starting in early 2020.

Afghanistan has high levels of terrorism, poverty, and corruption. Despite being rich in minerals, Afghanistan is currently among the poorest countries in the world due to being in a continuous state of war since 1977. It is estimated that over 2.1 million people have been killed since the start of the Afghanistan conflict. Mining is the biggest sector of the economy, providing the country's main export. The country has a power purchasing parity GDP of $203.79 billion as of 2018, but at least 45 percent of the population is below the poverty line.

Etymology

The root name "Afghān" is, according to some scholars, derived from the name of the Aśvakan or Assakan, ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush region. Aśvakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa, the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically, the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns. The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afġān was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam. The last part of the name, "-stan" is a Persian suffix for "place of." Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans," or "land of the Pashtuns" in a historical sense. The modern Constitution of Afghanistan, however, states that the word "Afghan" shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan.

History

Prehistoric and ancient

Citadel of Herat

Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. Artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen, very probably grouped into tribes, with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages. Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE. Zoroastrianism predominated as the religion in the area; even the modern Afghan solar calendar shows the influence of Zoroastrianism in the names of the months. Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism flourished later, leaving a major mark in the region. Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains (mountains of Solomon), although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.

Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE were likely to have been connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE and it is possible that the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE to 1500 BCE.

After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referred to as Ariana. The religion Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered.

The Buddha of Bamiyan. Afghanistan was Buddhist before the Islamic conquest

Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.

During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarite who, in turn, were replaced by the Hephthalites. By the 6th century CE, the successors to the Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty called Kabul Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.

Middle Ages

The Blue Mosque was built in the 15th century

Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. The land was collectively recognized by the Arabs as al-Hind due to its cultural connection with Greater India. Before Islam was introduced, people of the region were mostly Buddhists and Zoroastrians, but there were also Surya and Nana worshipers, Jews, and others. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.

By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids, whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215.

In 1219 AD, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khorasanian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur, who established the Timurid Empire in 1370.

In the early 16th century, Babur arrived from Fergana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. In 1526, he invaded Delhi in India to replace the Lodi dynasty with the Mughal Empire. Between the 16th and 18th century, the Khanate of Bukhara, Safavids, and Mughals ruled parts of the territory. Before the 19th century, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan, and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan.

Geography

Administrative divisions

According to the 1995 constitution Afghanistan is divided into 11 provinces, including the capital city-province Kabul. Because the administrative boundaries of the city-province cover a vast area, over 90 percent of the city-province's land is rural in nature, and the urban area occupies a small but expanding section in the center. Each province covers a number of districts or villages.

Before 1995 the country was previously divided into 34 provinces.

Province	Capital	Pashto name	Population (2018)
Kabul Province	Kabul	کابل
Faizabad Province	Faizabad	فیض آباد
Herat Province	Herat	هرت
Bamyan Province	Bamyan	بامیان
Ghazni Province	Ghazni	غزني‬
Chitral Province	Chitral
Peshawar Province	Peshawar
Jalalabad Province	Jalalabad	جلال آباد
Kandahar Province	Kandahar	کندهار‎
Balkh Province	Balkh	کندهار‎
Farah Province	Farah	فرا

Demographics

The population of Afghanistan was estimated to be 58,532,118 by the country's national statistics agency in 2017, though a national census has not been done in decades because of the conflict and instability. An additional 3.2 million Afghan refugees are housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. About 23.9% of Afghans are urbanite, 71.4% live in rural areas, and the remaining 4.7% are nomadic. The current population growth rate is 2.37%, one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. Millions have since returned and the war conditions has meant a high fertility rate compared to global and regional trends. Afghanistan's healthcare has recovered since the turn of the century, causing falls in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy. This (along with other factors such as returning refugees) caused rapid population growth in the 2000s that has only recently started to slow down.

Ethnic groups

The largest ethnic group in the country are the Pashtuns (67%), followed by Hazaras (20%), Tajiks (9%), Uzbeks (4%), and others being less than 1% (including Turkmen, Baloch, Arabs, Aimak, among others). The Afghan Constitution recognizes a total of 14 ethnic groups as being the nationalities of Afghanistan.

Languages

Pashto and Dari are both the official languages of Afghanistan. Dari, which is recognized as the Afghan Persian, serves as the lingua franca in majority of Afghanistan. It is the language resorted to when people of different ethnic groups need to conduct business or otherwise communicate, and spoken natively by the Tajik, Hazara, and Aimak population; overall 77% of the population can speak Dari Persian. The Afghan national anthem is normally recited in Pashto.

Uzbeki and Turkmeni are spoken in certain parts of the northern provinces, mainly among the Uzbek and Turkmen tribes. Smaller number of Afghans are also fluent in Urdu, Balochi, Arabic and other languages. English is taught in schools and is gradually becoming popular among the younger generation.

Religion

Almost the entire Afghan population is Muslim, with less than 1% being non-Muslim. Despite attempts to secularize Afghan society, Islamic practices pervade all aspects of life. Likewise, Islamic religious tradition and codes, together with traditional practices, provide the principal means of controlling personal conduct and settling legal disputes. Followers of other religions that are known are estimated to number in the hundreds. Among Muslims, about 65–70% are Sunnis while 27–35% are Shia.