Central Asia - South
Afghanistan, the Hindu Kush, and the Pamirs,

The highlands of South-Central Asia (more properly southwestern Central Asia) encompass some of the roughest country on earth, and have harboured sturdy, turbulant, and strongly independent-minded peoples as long as there have been humans in this area.

Here is: Afghanistan, Amb, Bactria, Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Chitral, Dir, Eucratid Bactria, Ghaznavid Emp., Ghurid Emp., Ghuristan, Herat, Hunza, Kabul, Kushan Empire, Kushanshahs, Maimana, Nagar, the Nezak, Pakhli, Peshawar, Phulera, Qandahar, Qonduz, Rajauri, Safa, Sakae, Sar-I-Pul, Swat, Tajikistan, Tu-Mi, Waziristan, and Zabulistan.

 
AFGHANISTAN: general survey The highlands west and northwest of the Indus River. This is an ancient land with a complex and varied history little recognized today. Its fiercely independent inhabitants have been the rock upon which a great many empires have foundered.


AMB Now incorporated into the Pakistani State of Tanawal, Amb was a Northwest Frontier State, one of the tribal entities in the northern highlands of Pakistan which have been more-or-less autonomous for ages, due to inaccessibility and the intransigence of the indigenes.


BACTRIA An Hellenic state whose rulers are known primarily from their coinage. It eventually fell under the vassalage of Scythian nomads from the north, the Tocharians. The succession, always confused, became completely disorganized after the Scythian overlordship; dates should be regarded as approximate in the extreme. See also Eastern Bactria, the Eucratid state formed when the Sakae disrupted the Kingdom. See Balkh for the fortunes of the probable capital city of this state.


BADAKHSHAN The northeastern corner of Afghanistan, the velayet (province) which is today the core territory of the Northern Alliance of opposition to the Taliban. It's modern capital is Faizabad.


BALKH A small town in northern Afghanistan, before the 13th century one of the largest and most important centers of the region. The place is most likely the ancient city of Baktra, the capital of the Kingdom of Bactria. A center of Islamic culture in the Middle Ages, the city was pillaged by Ghenghis Khan and never recovered.


BAMIYAN Town in North-central Afghanistan's Hazarijat province. Bamiyan is an ancient caravan center on the route across the Hindu Kush between India and central Asia. By the 7th cent. the town was a center of Buddhism; the Chinese pilgrims Fa Hsien and Hsüan-tsang traveled through the town. Bamiyan was invaded by the Saffarids in 871. A Muslim fortress town from the 9th to the 12th cent., Bamian was sacked by Ghenghis Khan in 1221 and never regained its former prominence. The Bamiyan valley is lined with cave dwellings cut out of the cliffs by Buddhist monks. Particularly interesting were two great figures (one 175 ft/53 m high, the other 120 ft/37 m) carved from rock c. 625 CE and finished in fine plaster. These were the statues destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, who considered them idolatrous. The area also has grottoes decorated with wall paintings in Greco-Buddhist styles.


CHITRAL A town in far northern Pakistan, within the central Hindu Kush Mountains in the upper Kunar valley, about 20 miles (32 km.) east of the Afghan frontier and roughly 130 miles (210 km.) north of Peshawar.


DIR Dir was a Northwest Frontier State, located about 88 miles (140 km.) north-northeast of Peshawar. It was one of the tribal entities in the northern highlands of Pakistan which have been more-or-less autonomous for ages, due to inaccessibility and the intransigence of the indigenes.


HERAT (Eastern Khorasan)A wealthy city and fertile region in northwestern Afghanistan, comprising the plains on the watershed of the Harirud River, with the edge of the Hindu Kush Mountains bordering on the east.


HUNZA (Kanjut) Hunza was a Northwest Frontier State, one of the tribal entities in the northern highlands of Pakistan which have been more-or-less autonomous for ages, due to inaccessibility and the intransigence of the indigenes. It lay furthest north of all of the Frontier states, with it's capital at Baltit (Karimabad) - the Gilgit Agency was to the south, Nagar to the east, Afghanistan to the northwest, and China to the north. The rulers were Shi'ites of Kanjut ethnicity.


KABUL The capital and largest city in Afghanistan, a place of great strategic import, Kabul is also one of the oldest cities in the region - there are references to the place in the Hindu Rig Veda scriptures (c. 1500 BCE), during Alexandrian times it was called Gandara, and Claudius Ptolemy identifies it (as "Kabura or Ortospana") in the Geographos, 2nd cent. CE.


MAIMANA A city-state in the northwest of Afghanistan, independent from the time when Persia retreated out of the region, to the era in which Afghanistan coalesced into a recognizable state.


NAGAR Nagar was a Northwest Frontier State, one of the tribal entities in the northern highlands of Pakistan which have been more-or-less autonomous for ages, due to inaccessibility and the intransigence of the indigenes.


The NEZAK The Nezak were a Hephtalite clan which seized control during the 600's and 700's in various places in Afghanistan, including Kapisa, Kabul, and Ghazni, as well as parts of Seistan.


PAKHLI A region in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.


PESHAWAR A district and city in northern Pakistan - the city is about 140 miles (225 km.) east of Kabul. The region has long been known as a point of contact between a bewildering array of cultures - Hellenistic, Buddhist, Central Asian Muslim, and Sikh influences have all been active here. Within the old quarter of the city, the Qissah Khwani Bazar (Street of the Storytellers) has been a market and meetingplace for foreign merchants for millennia.


PHULERA A minor statelet in the Northwest Frontier region, established for a younger son of the ruling dynasty of Amb.


QANDAHAR A major city and district in southwestern Afghanistan, located in the southern plains on the main routes between Teheran, Kabul, and Quetta.


QONDUZ A northern Afghan state, about equidistant between Mazar-I-Sharif and the capital of the Northern Alliance, Faizabad.


RAJAURI A small town in far western Kashmir, 10 miles (16 km.) east of the Cease-Fire Line between India and Pakistan, and 58 miles (93 km.) southwest of the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar.


SAFA Now a tiny village in eastern Afghanistan, some 46 miles (74 km.) south of Kabul and about 38 miles (61 km.) west of the nearest point on the Pakistani frontier. Formerly, it was a base for the Durrani clan, the chiefs of the Alus Abdali, who eventually mastered all Afghanistan.


SAR-I-PUL A city in northwest Afghanistan, independent during the chaos of the 19th century.


SWAT Swat was a Northwest Frontier State located 70 miles (112 km.) northeast of Peshawar. It was one of the tribal entities in the northern highlands of Pakistan which have been more-or-less autonomous for ages, due to inaccessibility and the intransigence of the indigenes. This district has often been under the authority of local religious leaders ("Akhunds"), with no specific secular ruler in place.


TAJIKISTAN The highlands of southern Central Asia, astride the Afghan frontier.

WAZIRISTAN A district in northwest Pakistan, along the Afghan frontier roughly 150 miles (240 km.) southwest of Peshawar, and about 140 miles (225 km.) south of Kabul.
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