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 just above its confluence with the Kunar River. Arandu lies on the border with Kunar Province,

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 Raj Subjects by Mir Zaman Khan.

Demography

Ethnically most residents are

Khowar Khowar (, ''Khōwār'', ), also known by its common exonym Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group, primarily spoken by the Kho (Chitrali) people, native to the Chitral region and surrounding areas of Pakistan. Khowar is th ...

, 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 Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

, locally this language is also known as ''Aranduiwar''.

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, and

are also spoken and understood.

Geography

Arandu is located on the banks of the Landai Sin River (Bashgal River) just above its intersection with the Kunar River (Chitral River), along the Drosh-

Jalalabad Jalalabad (; Help:IPA/Persian, ͡ʒä.lɑː.lɑː.bɑːd̪ is the list of cities in Afghanistan, fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 200,331, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part ...

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 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 Csa by Köppen and Geiger. The average annual temperature is 17.6 °C in Arandu. The average annual rainfall is 800 mm.

Notes and references