Pârûn (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: پارون), also called Prasûn and Prasungul, is a small town and administrative center of Nuristan Province and its Parun District in

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 bordere ...

. The city of Parun has a population of 1,647. It has 1 district and a total land area of 350 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Parun is 183. On 15 August 2021, Parun was seized by

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

fighters, becoming the thirty-second provincial capital to be captured by the Taliban as part of the wider

2021 Taliban offensive A military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the ...

Land use

Parun is a village in northeastern Afghanistan with only 350 hectares and 183 dwellings. It is predominantly forest land (54%) followed by agriculture (33%). Built-up land only accounts for 7% of total land use. But unlike many other cities, Parun does not have any barren land and only 4 hectares of vacant plots.

Geography

Parun has 6 villages: Ishtewi, Pronz, Dewa, Kushteki, Tsutsum and Pashki. They are located over a distance of 20 km from north to south along the Parun River. Ishtewi, the upper village, lies at an altitude of 2,850 m above sea level, while Pashki, the lowest village, lies at 2,500 m above sea level .

Climate

Under the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

, Parun has a subarctic climate (''Dsc''). The average temperature for the year in Parun is . The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of , while the coldest month on average is January, with an average temperature of .

Plans for a city

According to news published in 2007, the governor of Nuristan Province was planning to establish a city of about 20,000 people in Parun. This would make it "''the first city in Nuristan''". The report indicated that some construction had begun.Afghan Governor Has Big Plans for Lonely Province
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, National Public Radio, 13 November 2007, ''... The 50-year-old governor says Parun — the first city in Nuristan — is only the beginning for a province where residents farm and raise goats to survive ...''

Languages

Wasi-wari Wasi-wari (Vasi-vari, Wasi-weri) is the language of the Wasi people, spoken in a few villages in the Pârun Valley (Prasun Valley) in Afghanistan. It also goes by the name Prasun or Paruni. Vasi-vari belongs to the Indo-European language famil ...

is natively spoken in Parun, while Kamkata-vari,

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

and

Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...

are also understood. The

Gurjar Gurjar or Gujjar (also transliterated as ''Gujar, Gurjara and Gujjer'') is an ethnic nomadic, agricultural and pastoral community, spread mainly in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were tra ...

s of Parun also speak their native language, known as

Gujari Gojri (, ), also known as Gujari, Gujri, Gojari, or Gojri, is a variety of Rajasthani spoken by the Gurjars and other tribes of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In India, the language is mainly spoken in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, ...

References

Populated places in Nuristan Province Provincial capitals in Afghanistan {{Nuristan-geo-stub