The Pashtun lands: mountains, rivers and passes

Mountains, valleys and plains

The Pashtun homeland is not a single landscape. It runs from glaciated mountains through high valleys and dry uplands to the edge of the Indus plain, and much of it lies on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Pashtun tribes straddle. This article describes the main physical features: the mountain ranges, the rivers that drain them, the passes that cross them and the climates they create. [1] [4]

The Hindu Kush

The Hindu Kush is the south-western range of the great mountain system of middle and southern Asia, lying partly in Afghanistan and partly in Pakistan. Its eastern section, from the Dorah Pass to the Baroghil Pass, carries the border between the two countries and has several peaks above 7,000 metres. The highest point of the whole range, Tirich Mir (7,706 m), stands on a side ridge in Chitral. [1]

The range is geologically young, and frequent, sometimes severe, earthquakes show that it is still active. Glaciers above about 5,000 metres are an important source of water: rivers such as the Chitral-Kunar are fed by meltwater and still carry plenty of water in the dry autumn. The name itself is fairly recent and is first recorded by the traveller Ibn Battuta around 1330. [1]

Spin Ghar and the Sulaiman Range

Near the Khyber Pass the border runs through the Safed Koh, known in Pashto as Spin Ghar (سپین غر), "the White Mountain". The Khyber Range, through which the pass runs, begins east of the Jalalabad plain and is joined by a ridge to the northern face of Spin Ghar. This range should not be confused with another Safed Koh in central Afghanistan. [3]

Further south lies the Sulaiman Range (Koh-i-Sulaiman), crossed by several historic passes described below. The historian Andreas Wilde notes that for much of history it was neither these mountains nor the Khyber but the Indus Valley that formed the frontier between Indian, Persian and Greek spheres of influence. [3]

Rivers: the Kabul, the Swat and the Indus

The Kabul river rises at Sar Chashma in the Koh-i-Baba mountains north-west of Kabul and flows for about 350 kilometres. It is the only Afghan river that reaches the sea, as a tributary of the Indus. Below Kabul it receives the Logar, then the Panjshir near Sarobi, and in the Jalalabad plain the Kunar from the north. It breaks through Spin Ghar north of the Khyber Pass into the Peshawar valley and joins the Indus west of Attock. [2]

Like other rivers fed by melting snow, the Kabul varies greatly in volume through the year. Since the 1990s it has repeatedly been hit by drought and has at times dried up in summer. [2]

The Swat river, which gives the Swat valley its name, rises from glaciers in the upper valley, among them Gabral and Mahodand. It irrigates the valley along a course of about 320 kilometres before joining the Kabul river. It also has a long history of floods, with severe ones in 2010 and 2022. [5]

Passes and routes

Passes have shaped life in the region as much as the mountains. The Khyber Pass links Kabul with Peshawar and runs for about 33 miles (53 km) between Jamrud in the east and Dakka in the west. At Ali Masjid the defile narrows to about 40 feet (12 m) between cliffs, and the route reaches its highest point at Landi Kotal, 3,518 feet (about 1,070 m) above sea level. Landi Kotal is a market centre for the Afridi and Shinwari, the major tribes of the Khyber area. [3]

The Khyber was never the only way through. The Kurram, Gomal, Khojak and Bolan passes cross the Sulaiman Range, and passes such as the Shibar and Salang lead across the Hindu Kush towards Central Asia. These routes carried armies, but also trade, including a branch of the Silk Road that linked the Indus Valley and Punjab with Bactria. [3]

Climate contrasts

The region sits at a climatic meeting point. Across the Hindu Kush the climate shifts from a western pattern, with rain and snow in winter and spring, to a South Asian pattern dominated by the summer monsoon. The southern slopes, in Nuristan and southern Chitral, lie on the fringe of the monsoon and carry forest: evergreen oak and wild olive between about 1,300 and 2,300 metres, and conifers including cedar up to about 3,300 metres. [1]

The northern and north-western slopes are drier and support only sparse juniper woodland, with rain falling mainly in winter and spring. The inner valleys lie in a rain shadow and have desert vegetation, except along rivers and streams. [1]

The Durand Line

The international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan follows the Durand Line. It was drawn in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, then foreign secretary of British India, and was accepted by the Amir of Afghanistan in the same year. Pakistan inherited the boundary on independence in 1947. The border is about 2,250 kilometres long, and in the north it runs along the ridges of the Hindu Kush. [4]