Afghanistan Explained

Maps, Flags, and Facts

Geography

History

Note: Since the Taliban Offensive that started in the Summer of 2021, Afghanistan has a new government, new flag, etc. If needed, this blog will be updated in the future.

Afghanistan is a really mountainous country. Just take a look at this map:

Here, green stands for low elevation while yellow and white are the highest. Afghanistan happens to be located in the middle of the Hindu Kush. The Hindu Kush is a smaller range of the Himalayan Mountains, sort of like the White Mountains of New Hampshire being a part of the Appalachians. Anyways, this leads us to our next part of geography: borders. If you take a close look at Afghanistan's borders, you won't see any rivers, or lakes, or anything like that. In fact, many of these borders are sort of meaningless, because until a fence was constructed a few years ago, people could freely cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with no trouble. But many years ago, Afghanistan used to have another purpose: it was a buffer state between the UK and Russia. (I will talk more about this in the History section). This might be why there were so many ethnic groups listed in under the Quick Facts.

Afghanistan has a long history.

Before the 7th century, the region of Afghanistan was mostly Buddhist or Zoroastrian. But in 642, Islam was introduced, and soon after, the Saffarid Dynasty had control of most of what is now Afghanistan. Many dynasties were established in and around Afghanistan, as well as many caliphates like the Umayyad Caliphate.

In the 1800s, Russia and the UK  were competing for land in Asia. The United Kingdom had colonies in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Ceylon, and the Maldives, and was looking to expand further. Meanwhile, the Russian Empire had control of what is now Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. To prevent them from fighting wars in Afghanistan (which the two tried doing and failed), they united many independent nations to create Afghanistan. This might be why Afghanistan has so many ethnic groups. This is also why you see this strip that connects Afghanistan to China, called the Wakhan Corridor. This was meant to keep Pakistan in the British Raj and the Tajik region of the Russian Empire separate. This helped Afghanistan But this might have contributed to some instability, as different ethnic groups battle for control.

In 1919, after defeating the British, a monarchy was established in Afghanistan. For many years, Afghanistan was a neutral nation. It was neutral in both WWI and WWII. In 1973, the monarchy was overthrown in favor of a republic. 5 years later, Nur Muhammad Taraki overthrew the republic and became leader. He quickly allied himself with the Soviet Union. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded to try to assist the Socialist Afghan government against Mujahedeen rebels. In the 1990s, the Taliban captured most of the nation. After 9/11, the US government invaded Afghanistan. For over 20 years, the United States and its allies have occupied Afghanistan.

In the summer of 2021, the US withdrew many forces. The Taliban quickly overran large amounts of territories. I will update this article when new details come in.

Thanks for reading!