AFGHANISTAN'S HISTORY, internal political development, foreign
relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely
been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of
Central, West, and South Asia. Over the centuries, waves of migrating
peoples passed through the region--described as a "roundabout
of the ancient world," by historian Arnold Toynbee--leaving behind
a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. In modern times, as
well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through
Afghanistan, temporarily establishing local control and often
dominating Iran and northern India.
Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade
for over two millennia, Afghanistan did not become a truly independent
nation until the twentieth century. The area's heterogeneous groups
were not bound into a single political entity until the reign
of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who in 1747 founded the monarchy that ruled
the country until 1973. In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan
lay between the expanding might of the Russian and British empires.
In 1900, Abdur Rahman Khan (the "Iron Amir"), looking back on
his twenty years of rule and the events of the past century, wondered
how his country, which stood "like a goat between these lions
[Britain and Tsarist Russia] or a grain of wheat between two strong
millstones of the grinding mill, [could] stand in the midway of
the stones without being ground to dust?" Constrained by the competing
dictates of powerful British and Russian empires, Abdur Rahman
focused instead on consolidating his power within Afghanistan
and creating the institutions of a modern nation-state.
Islam played a key role in the formation of Afghan history as
well. Despite the Mongol invasion of Afghanistan in the early
thirteenth century which has been described as resembling "more
some brute cataclysm of the blind forces of nature than a phenomenon
of human history," even a warrior as formidable as Genghis Khan
did not uproot Islamic civilization, and within two generations
his heirs had become Muslims. An often unacknowledged event that
nevertheless played an important role in Afghan history (and in
the politics of Afghanistan's neighbors and the entire region
up to the present) was the rise in the tenth century of a strong
Sunni dynasty--the Ghaznavids. Their power prevented the eastward
spread of Shiism from Iran, thereby insuring that the majority
of the Muslims in Afghanistan and South Asia would be Sunnis.
Country
name Afghanistan conventional long form Islamic State of
Afghanistan conventional short form Afghanistan local long
form Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan local short form Afghanestan former Republic of Afghanistan
Area
- total: 647,500 sq km land: 647,500 sq km water: 0 sq km
Terrain
- mostly rugged mountains; plains in north and southwest
Climate
- arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers
Geography
- landlocked; the Hindu Kush mountains that run northeast to southwest divide
the northern provinces from the rest of the country; the highest peaks are in
the northern Vakhan (Wakhan Corridor)
Waterways
- 1,200 km note: chiefly Amu Darya, which handles vessels up to 500 DWT (2001)
Natural hazards - damaging earthquakes
occur in Hindu Kush mountains; flooding; droughts
Information
Courtesy: The Library of Congress - Country Studies
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