Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

is divided into 34

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

s (, '' wilåyat''). The provinces of Afghanistan are the primary

administrative division Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

s. Each province encompasses a number of districts or usually over 1,000 villages. Provincial governors played a critical role in the reconstruction of the Afghan state following the creation of the new government under Hamid Karzai. According to international security scholar Dipali Mukhopadhyay, many of the provincial governors of the western-backed government were former

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

s who were incorporated into the political system.

Provinces of Afghanistan

Regions of Afghanistan

UN Regions

Former provinces of Afghanistan

During Afghanistan's history it had a number of provinces in it. It started out as just Kabul, Herat, Qandahar, and Balkh but the number of provinces increased and by 1880 the provinces consisted of Balkh, Herat, Qandahar, Ghazni, Jalalabad, and Kabul. * Southern Province – dissolved in 1964 to create Paktia Province. * Turkestan Province – dissolved somewhere between 1929 and 1946. *

Qataghan-Badakhshan Province Qataghan-Badakhshan Province ( prs, ولایت قطغن-بدخشان) was a province located in Afghanistan. The province was originally created in 1890 when the districts of Qataghan and Badakhshan was separated from the Afghan Turkestan province. ...

– dissolved in 1963 into Badakhshan Province and Qataghan Province, the latter of which was also dissolved that same year. * Qataghan Province – dissolved in 1963 into Baghlan Province, Kunduz Province, and Takhar Province. * Eastern Province – dissolved in 1964 to create Nangarhar Province. * Farah-Chakansur Province – dissolved in 1964 into Farah Province and Nimruz Province. *

Mazar-i-Sharif Province Mazar-i-Sharif Province is a defunct province of Afghanistan, which in 1964 was divided into Balkh Province and Jowzjan Province. The former province's capital was Mazar-i-Sharif. As of 1946, it had a population of 944,020. In 1929, the provin ...

– dissolved in 1964 into Balkh Province and Jowzjan Province. * Meymaneh Province – dissolved in 1964 into Badghis Province and Faryab Province.

Notes

References

External links

Afghanistan Information Management Services (AIMS)

Afghanistan Provinces MapXavier de Planhol, 2000, ''GEOGRAPHY i. Evolution of geographical knowledge: Development of geographical knowledge about Afghanistan.'', Encyclopædia Iranica.
{{Articles on first-level administrative divisions of Asian countries Subdivisions of Afghanistan Provinces, Afghanistan Afghanistan 1 Subdivisions of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan