Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian Empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in increased democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 communist countercoup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. Internationally supported anti-communist mujahidin rebels forced the USSR to withdraw in 1989. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, a US and Allied military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Usama BIN LADIN.
A UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan, and he was reelected in 2009. Ashraf Ghani AHMADZAI succeeded him as president in 2014 following a disputed election. The Taliban conducted an insurgency for two decades against the Afghan Government and forces from the United States and other countries. In February 2020, the US and the Taliban signed an agreement that led to the withdrawal of international forces in exchange for commitments on counterterrorism and other assurances. The Taliban took over Afghanistan on 15 August 2021.
The Taliban established an all-male interim leadership structure dominated by Pashtun clerics under the leadership of Haivatrullah AKHUNDZADA. The Taliban issued numerous edicts that constrained women's mobility, ability to study and work, and access to education beyond primary school. To date, no country has recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.
" } }, "Geography": { "Location": { "text": "Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran" }, "Geographic coordinates": { "text": "33 00 N, 65 00 E" }, "Map references": { "text": "Asia" }, "Area": { "total": { "text": "652,230 sq km" }, "land": { "text": "652,230 sq km" }, "water": { "text": "0 sq km" } }, "Area - comparative": { "text": "almost six times the size of Virginia; slightly smaller than Texas" }, "Land boundaries": { "total": { "text": "5,987 km" }, "border countries": { "text": "China 91 km; Iran 921 km; Pakistan 2,670 km; Tajikistan 1,357 km; Turkmenistan 804 km; Uzbekistan 144 km" } }, "Coastline": { "text": "0 km (landlocked)" }, "Maritime claims": { "text": "none (landlocked)" }, "Climate": { "text": "arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers" }, "Terrain": { "text": "mostly rugged mountains; plains in north and southwest" }, "Elevation": { "highest point": { "text": "Noshak 7,492 m" }, "lowest point": { "text": "Amu Darya 258 m" }, "mean elevation": { "text": "1,884 m" } }, "Natural resources": { "text": "natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones, arable land" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "58.1% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 11.8% (2018)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 0.3% (2018)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 46% (2018)" }, "forest": { "text": "1.8% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "40.1% (2018)" } }, "Irrigated land": { "text": "24,930 sq km (2020)" }, "Major lakes (area sq km)": { "salt water lake(s)": { "text": "Ab-e Istadah-ye Muqur (endorheic basin) - 520 sq km" } }, "Major rivers (by length in km)": { "text": "Amu Darya (shared with Tajikistan [s], Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan [m]) - 2,620 km; Helmand river source (shared with Iran) - 1,130 km
کتاب حقایق جهان، مرجعی ضروری برای اطلاعات اولیە (Dari)
د دنیا د حقائېقو کتاب، بنیادی معلوماتو لپاره ضروری سرچینه- (Pashto)the Taliban is implementing its own interpretation of Islamic law, which is partially based on the Hanifi school of Islamic jurisprudence and have enforced strict punishments; before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan had a mixed legal system of civil, customary, and Islamic law
(2021)" }, "International law organization participation": { "text": "has not submitted an ICJ jurisdiction declaration; formerly accepted ICCt jurisdiction" }, "Citizenship": { "citizenship by birth": { "text": "no" }, "citizenship by descent only": { "text": "at least one parent must have been born in - and continuously lived in - Afghanistan" }, "dual citizenship recognized": { "text": "no" }, "residency requirement for naturalization": { "text": "5 years" } }, "Suffrage": { "text": "18 years of age; universal" }, "Executive branch": { "chief of state": { "text": "overall Taliban Leader HAYBATULLAH Akhundzada serves as the head of the Taliban as Amir-ul Momineen and as such is seen by the Taliban as head of state; he resides and issues decrees from the city of Kandahar while the legacy government ministries operate from Kabul" }, "head of government": { "text": "overall Taliban Leader HAYBATULLAH Akhundzada is the [so-called] Amir-ul Momineen of the Taliban and is seen by them as a head of government" }, "cabinet": { "text": "
the Taliban have announced a “cabinet” for the “caretaker government,” including the “acting prime minister,” “acting deputy prime ministers,” and “ministers” who claim to represent 26 ministries
" }, "elections/appointments": { "text": "the 2004 Afghan constitution directed that the president should be elected by majority popular vote for a 5-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held on 28 September 2019, and the Taliban have given no indication that they intend to reinstate elections or any other mechanism of democratic governance" }, "note": "note 1: the United States has not yet made a decision whether to recognize the Taliban or any other entity as the government of AfghanistanAfghanistan-China: none identified
Afghanistan-Iran: Afghan and Iranian commissioners have discussed boundary monument densification and resurvey; Iran protests Afghanistan's restricting flow of dammed Helmand River tributaries during drought
Afghanistan-Pakistan: Pakistan has built fences in some portions of its border with Afghanistan which remains open in some areas to terrorist and other illegal activities; their alignments may not always be in conformance with the Durand Line and original surveyed definitions of the boundary; Pakistan demarcates the Durand Line differently from Afghanistan, and thus portions of the Pakistani fence may lie within what Afghanistan (and most of the international community, including the US) would consider Afghan territory; successive governments in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, have not accepted the 1947 demarcation line
Afghanistan-Tajikistan: none identified
Afghanistan-Turkmenistan: none identified
Afghanistan-Uzbekistan: none identified; boundary follows Amu Darya River as delimited in the Afghan-Soviet treaties and not by the river's current course; the boundary was delimited and possibly demarcated during Soviet times (pre-1991); no current negotiations between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to redelimit the boundary have been identified