Pashtun Diaspora

The Pashtun diaspora comprises all ethnic Pashtuns and their descendants who are living outside of their traditional homeland of Pashtunistan, a historic region that is today situated over parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Pashtunistan is home to the majority of Pashtun people, there are significant local Pashtun diaspora communities scattered across the neighbouring Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab, particularly in their respective provincial capital cities of Karachi and Lahore. Additionally, people with Pashtun ancestry are also found across India; particularly in Rohilkhand, a region in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh; and in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Outside of South Asia, significant Pashtun diaspora communities are found in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf (primarily in the United Arab Emirates), the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Iran, Australia, Canada, and Russia.

The Pashtun people, who are classified as an Iranian ethnolinguistic group, are believed to have settled in the traditional Pashtunistan region around the early . According to Ethnologue, the total Pashtun population currently stands at around 50 million, but some sources give slightly lower or higher figures. Among Indic communities in the Indian subcontinent, Pashtuns are commonly referred to by the word .

Native land

Afghanistan

The ethnonym ''Afghan'' (of Persian origin) has been historically used since the 3rd century AD to refer to the Pashtuns, and is now used to describe every citizen of Afghanistan. Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising 46-65% of the total Afghan population. Approximately 2 million Afghan refugees live in neighboring Pakistan. The majority of them are Pashtuns who were born in that country. Although Pakistani citizenship laws give anyone born inside the British drawn borders of Pakistan citizenship, an exception has been made to not give Afghan(mostly Pashtun) refugees citizenship. A move which has greatly angered the Pashtuns of Pakistan

The Pashtuns are scattered all over Afghanistan, they can be found in almost every province of the country. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan and a stronghold of the Pashtun culture. The city of Lashkargah in the south, Farah in the west, Jalalabad in the east, and Kunduz in the north are other prominent cultural centres whose populations are predominantly Pashtun.

Pakistan

Most Pashtuns are based in Pakistan. Pashtuns are one of the largest ethnic minority in Pakistan, making up 18% of the total population of Pakistan. Pashtuns form the majority ethnic group in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including tribal areas, and northern Balochistan.

With as many as 8.5 million by some estimates, the city of Karachi in Sindh Province hosts the largest concentration of urban Pashtuns population in the world Some important Pashtun cities of Pakistan include: Peshawar, Quetta, Zhob, Loralai, Killa Saifullah, Attock, Swat, Mardan, Charsada, Mingora, Bannu, Parachinar, and Swabi Torghar District & Mansehra Pashtun Tribes speak Pushto language while Jadoons, Tareens and Dilazaks of Abbottabad & Haripur District speak Hindko language and sometimes Pashto as the second language.

The following outlines the Pashtun population in the provinces of Pakistan:

Smaller Pashtun communities outside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan can be found in the districts of Attock and Mianwali in Punjab. These and other communities of Pashtun ancestry who have long-settled in Punjab and Sindh region are often referred to as the Pathans. There are also large communities of Pathans such as Niazi and others who live in Khanewal, Kasur; and other larger communities have settled around Multan which was formerly part of the Durrani Empire. Pathan communities live in different district of Azad Kashmir.There, they are mainly settled in the districts of Poonch, Sudhnuti and Bagh. In Poonch and Sudhnuti they constitute more than 70% of the population. Kashmiri Pashtuns mainly consist of the Sadozai tribe, which is locally known as Sudhan. Approximate population of Sadozais in AJK is 1 million. Sadozai tribe has a strong hold in Rawalakot city in Azad Kashmir. A small number of other pashtun tribes in Kashmir which include Durrani, Tareen, Lodhi, Yousafzai Shinwary and Afridi tribes which extends from Azad Kashmir to India's Jammu and Kashmir. They speak local languages.

In addition to this, some Urdu