Torkham (; ) is a

Pakistani Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...

town in

Khyber District Khyber District (, ) is a district in the Peshawar Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Until 2018, it was an agency of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas. With the merger of FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in ...

(until 2018 the Khyber Agency of the now defunct

FATA The Federally Administered Tribal Areas, commonly known as FATA, was a autonomous administrative division, semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan that existed from Independence Day (Pakistan), 1947 until being merged with the ...

), that is the location of the

Torkham Border Crossing Torkham border crossing (Urdu, Persian, and ''Tūrkham'') is a major border crossing between the Pakistani city of Torkham and Afghanistan, located along the Grand Trunk Road on the international border between the two countries. It connect ...

with

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 ...

just to the west of the historic

Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass (Urdu: درۂ خیبر; ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by tr ...

. Torkham lies at the end of the N-5 National Highway. It is connected to city of

Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...

in the east. Transported goods arrive to Torkham from the port city of

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...

province. Torkham is west of the summit of the

. It lies on the most important supply route for US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's government sometimes block supplies due to the American use of

drone strikes in Pakistan Between 2004 and 2018, the United States government#Executive branch, United States government attacked thousands of targets in northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operatio ...

, and for security reasons after firing from the Afghan side against Pakistani construction workers building a border fence. By the end of 2018, Pakistan had completed a 486 kilometer portion of the border fence around Torkham to seal the porous border in order to curb arms smuggling, illegal migration, and drug trafficking. Throughout history it has been an important

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over land or water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a singl ...

between the

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

and a strategic military location. The adjacent town on the other side of border in Afghanistan is also known as Torkham. Torkham was the first point of entry into Pakistan for many of the 3.5 million Afghans who fled the Soviet invasion as refugees.

Climate

With an influence from the local steppe climate, Torkham features a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BSh''). The average temperature in Torkham is 20.3 °C, while the annual precipitation averages 407 mm. June is the driest month with an average rainfall of 8 mm, while the wettest month is March, with an average 82 mm of precipitation. June is the hottest month of the year with an average temperature of 31.0 °C. The coldest month January has an average temperature of 8.4 °C.

References

External links

* Populated places in Khyber District {{Khyber-geo-stub