There are three geophysical zones: the western plateaus, the Hindu Kush mountains and the northern river valleys.
The western plateaus are an extension of the central Iranian Plateau. In Afganistan's northwest they center on the lower Harirud river valley, but further south is a broad zone of scrub desert and steppe through which the Helmand flows. At the end of that river are the Sistan marshes, which straddle the Iranian border.
The nations's center and east feature the Hindu Kush. These rise up to almost 7,500 meters at Nowshak on the Pakistan border. Several peaks entirely within the nation exceed 6,000 meters. These heights are drained in the west by desert-bound rivers like the Harirud and the Helmand; just south of the Hindu Kush by a tribuary of the Indus(2); and in the north by the Amudar'ya system.
That river is formed on the nation's border when the Panj(3) joins a river flowing from Tajikistan(4). The Panj forms most of Afghanistan's northern border. This river in turn is formed by the Pamir River and the Vakhan(5). The latter giave its name to the spindly east extension of the nation which separates Tajikistan from Pakistan.
There are more than 25 million people living here, but no one first language accounts for a majority. More than four in ten speak a form of Persian(6). Only slightly less speak dalects of Pashto(7). Both of these are Iranian languages. Together with some minor Iranian languages they account for more than 17 in 20 Afghans. The largest non-Iranian language is Uzbek, spoken by more than one in 20. The remainder speak a miscellany of languages.
Almost everyone is a Moslem. Almost 17 in 20 are Sunni, and three in 20 Shi'ite.
The capital, Kabul(8), has more than three million residents. The city is on the river with its name, which flows eastward through the Hindu Kush into Pakistan. This route has been used for repeated invasions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, and so this city has been of strategic importance for millenia.
It is hard to say who was here before the Indo-Europeans: perhaps Dravidians, since they were once found in western Iran, are still found in small numbers here(9), and are found to Afghanistan's southeast.
More than 4,000 years ago, an Indo-European language called Indo-Iranian is hypothesized. It split about that time into two groups both of whom called themselves Aryan. One group gave rise to the Iranians, the other to the Indo-Aryans. Both groups migrated into this area in pre-history.
The Iranians were early represented by the Bactrians in the northern lowlands. Soon imperial Persia conquered the area. Later Bactria was conquered by another Indo-European group, the Tocharians or Yueh-Chih. The Yueh-Chih displaced the Scythians or Sakas, an Iranian group, who crossed Afghanistan on their way southeast. And more Iranian groups continued to arrive over the centuries, including the Pashto, more Persians, and eventually the Baluchi.
Meanwhile the Indo-Aryans crossed Afghanistan on their way southeastward. A few stayed in northeastern Afghanistan and are still there today.
Both groups were influenced by a temporary infusion of Greek culture, but it left no lasting linguistic or religious traces.
Probably most of the early Iranians followed the religions of their brethren, including Zoroastrianism. The early Indo-Aryans followed a religion that later formed the main element of Brahmanism, the ancestral form of Hinduism. The two religions shared much, including the names of gods--though their relative status and repute differed--certain rites, and a tripartite vision of the ideal social order.
Later many Iranian groups and the Yueh-Chih converted to Indic religions, especially Buddhism, but also Shivaism.
The Hephthalites(10), who conquered the Yueh Chih, practiced an ecletic religion which included elements of Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity. Their religious influence was ephemeral.
In the seventh century, Arabs conquered western Afghanistan and introduced Islam there.
Moslem Turkic groups arrived in the following centuries, spreading Islam throughout today's Afghanistan.
The Mongolians invaded in the 13th century. After their empire disintegrated, the Uzbeks under Timur the Lame(11) took over. When that empire faded, the Mongols--now the Moghuls--took over central Afghanistan and conquered southeastward from there. its only linguistic traces today are in loanwords in the Hazaragi version of Persian.
Persia conquered Afghanistan briefly in the 18th century, and soon after the nation became independent under Pashto hegemony.
north, from the northeast
east of Vakhan
southeast
southwest
west
northwest
north, from the north center
(1) Also spelled Afghanestan.
(2) Asia's eighth longest river.
(3) Also splled Pandz with a diacritical on the z.
(4) More strictly transliterated as Tajikiston.
(5) Also spelled Wakhan.
(6) Eastern Farsi, called Dari in the west and Tajik in the north, is the most important. Hazaragi spoken in the center is the next most important. Some consider Persian to constitute a group rather than a unified language.
(7) There are many Pashto-speaking Afghan nationals in Pakistan; this makes exact statistics difficult. The language is formerly spelled Pushtu in English. Northerners called themselves Pakhtun and southerners, Pashtun.
(8) More strictly transliterated as Kabol.
(9) Brahui speakers.
(10) Their language affiliation is unknown.
(11) Or Timurlane or Timur Leng.