Arandu () is a town in the Lower Chitral District of

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. The town is on the banks of the

Landai Sin River The Landai Sin River ( ''Lanḍai Sīn'', "Short River"), also called the Bashgal River (), is located in eastern Afghanistan. It rises in the Hindu Kush range near the Mandol Pass in the Nuristan Province of Afghanistan, and is fed from glacie ...

just above its confluence with the

Kunar River The Chitral River, also known in Afghanistan as the Kunar River, is a long river in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. It originates from the Chiantar glacier, located at the border of Gilgit Baltistan and Chitral in Pakistan. At A ...

. Arandu lies on the border with

Kunar Province Kunar (Pashto: ; Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. Its capital is Asadabad. Its population is estimated to be 508,224. Kunar's major political groups include Wahhabis or Ahl-e- ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

History

Anglo-Afghan War of 1919

During the Afghan War of Independence in 1919, the area was part of the ''Chatral front'' of the war where the Afghans invaded

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

and were led to victory over the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

and its British Indian Army, Raj Subjects by Mir Zaman Khan.

Demography

Ethnically most residents are Khowar people, Khowar, and Gawar-Bati is the language spoken by the majority of the people in Arandu. As Arandu has a low elevation and is the last village in Chitral District on the traditional trade route to Kabul, locally this language is also known as ''Aranduiwar''. Pashto language, Pashto, Urdu, and Khowar language, Khowar are also spoken and understood.

Geography

Arandu is located on the banks of the

(Bashgal River) just above its intersection with the

(Chitral River), along the Drosh-Jalalabad Road. The Drosh-Jalalabad Road, including water traffic along the Kunar, used to be part of a major trade route from India to Kabul. Arundu is built on Bench (geology), river benches that rise above the agricultural fields next to the two rivers. Arandu has an average elevation of . The Lowari Range is across the Kunar to the north and west, while Mount Raskarla rises to four kilometers to the east.

Climate

Arandu has the lowest elevation of any place in Chitral District and maintains tropical weather during the summer and warmer temperatures than the rest of Chitral in winter. The winters are rainier than the summers. Its climate is classified as warm and temperate, and is listed as Mediterranean climate#Hot-summer Mediterranean climate, Csa by Köppen climate classification, Köppen and Geiger. The average annual temperature is 17.6 °C in Arandu. The average annual rainfall is 800 mm.

Notes and references