Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghan farmlands viewed from a caves at the
| Topics: |  Geography |
Afghanistan is a landlocked nation of nearly 30 million people in southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan and east of Iran.
Afghanistan's terrain is about 75% mountains. The Hindu Kush mountains, considered an extension of the Himalayas, generally run northeast to southwest and divide the northern provinces from the rest of the country, with plains in the north and southwest. The highest peaks are in the northern Vakhan (Wakhan Corridor). 49% of the country is over 2,000 m (6,650 feet) in altitude.
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Afghanistan has limited natural freshwater resources and inadequate supplies of potable water.
Its other environmental problems include:
- soil degradation;
- overgrazing;
- deforestation (much of the remaining forests are being cut down for fuel and building materials);
- desertification; and,
- air and water pollution.
It is susceptible to damaging earthquakes which occur in Hindu Kush mountains, flooding and droughts.
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 democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels.
A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy.
Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama Bin Ladin. The 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 December 2004, Hamid Kaarzai became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and the National Assembly was inaugurated the following December. Karzai was re-elected in August 2009 for a second term.
Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government.
Geography
Location: Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran
Geographic Coordinates: 33 00 N, 65 00 E
Area: 652,230 sq km
Land Boundaries: 5,529 km (China 76 km, Iran 936 km, Pakistan 2,430 km, Tajikistan 1,206 km, Turkmenistan 744 km, Uzbekistan 137 km)
Natural Hazards: damaging earthquakes occur in Hindu Kush mountains; flooding; droughts
Terrain: mostly rugged mountains; plains in north and southwest. The highest point is Noshak (7,485 m) and the lowest point is Amu Darya (258 m).
Climate: arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers.
Topography of Afghanistan. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Ecology and Biodiversity
Source: World Wildlife Fund
See:
- Registan-North Pakistan sandy desert
- Baluchistan xeric woodlands
- Sulaiman Range alpine meadows
- Central Afghan Mountains xeric woodlands
- East Afghan montane conifer forests
- Ghorat-Hazarajat alpine meadow
- Afghan Mountains semi-desert
- Paropamisus xeric woodlands
- Badkhiz-Karabil semi-desert
- Northwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows
- Hindu Kush alpine meadow
- Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe
See also: Biological diversity in the mountains of Central Asia
Government
Government Type: Islamic republic
Capital: Kabul (population: 3.573 million est. 2009)
Administrative Divisions: 34 provinces (welayat, singular - welayat):
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Independence Date: 19 August 1919 (from UK control over Afghan foreign affairs)
Legal System: mixed legal system of civil, customary, and Islamic law. Afghanistan has not submitted an International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction declaration but accepts International Criminal Court (ICCt) jurisdiction
International Environmental Agreements
Afghanistan is party to international agreements on Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Marine Dumping, and Ozone Layer Protection.
Afghanistan has signed, but not ratified, international environmental agreements on: Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation
People and Society
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| Band-e-Amir in Bamyan Province is Afghanistan's first national park; it consists of six spectacular turquoise lakes separated by natural dams of travertine. |
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| View of the shell of the "Large Buddha" and surrounding caves in Bamyan. The Buddha statue in this cave as well as in another - both dating to the sixth century A.D. - were frequently visited and described over the centuries by travelers on the Silk Road. Both statues were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. |
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| For more than 3,000 years, Kabul has occupied a strategic location along Central and Southern Asian trade routes. In the late eighteenth century, Kabul was established as Afghanistan's capital. In this false-color satellite image vegetation appears fluorescent green, urban areas range in color from gray to black, and bare ground varies in color from beige to reddish brown. A mountain range, including Kohi Asamayi and Kohi Bini Hisar, snakes through the scene, running roughly northwest-southeast. More peaks appear in the northeast, right next to an airport. Urbanization appears densest at the city's center, just southwest of the airport, and it stretches out toward the right side of the image along an east-west highway. Leaping a mountain boundary, cityscape also fills the lower-left quadrant of the image. Partly constrained by surrounding mountains, Kabul's primary direction for growth has been vertical, with multistory buildings constructed atop existing structures. Photo courtesy of NASA. |
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| View from Shahr-i-Zohok (the "Red City") in Bamyan Province. Once a citadel housing about 3,000 people, it was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. The invaders also leveled the nearby city that the fortress had protected and massacred all its inhabitants (possibly 150,000) and animals. In memory, the site is today known as Shahr-i-Gholghola (the "City of Screams"). |
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| Clothing, jewelry, sculptures, and handicrafts on display at a bazaar in Kabul. |
Population: 29,835,392 (July 2011 est.)
Ethnic Groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
Religions: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%
Age Structure:
0-14 years: 42.3% (male 6,464,070/female 6,149,468)
15-64 years: 55.3% (male 8,460,486/female 8,031,968)
65 years and over: 2.4% (male 349,349/female 380,051) (2011 est.)
Population Growth Rate: 2.375% (2011 est.)
Birthrate: 37.83 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)
Death Rate: 17.39 deaths/1,000 population (July 2011 est.)
Net Migration Rate: 3.31 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2011 est.)
Life Expectancy at Birth: 45.02 years
Total Fertility Rate: 5.39 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Languages: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
Literacy (age 15 and over can read and write): 28.1%
Urbanization: 23% of total population (2010) growing at an annual rate of change of 4.7% (2010-15 est.)
Water
Total Renewable Water Resources: 65 cu km (1997)
Freshwater Withdrawal: 23.26 cu km/yr (2% domestic, 0% industrial, 98% agricultural):
Access to improved sources of drinking water: 48% of population (2008)
Access to improved sanitation facilities: 37% of population (2008)
Agriculture
Agricultural products: opium, wheat, fruits, nuts; wool, mutton, sheepskins, lambskins
Irrigated Land: 31,990 sq km (2008)
Resources
Natural Resources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones.
Land Use:
Economy
Afghanistan's economy is recovering from decades of conflict. The economy has improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 largely because of the infusion of international assistance, the recovery of the agricultural sector, and service sector growth.
Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid, agriculture, and trade with neighboring countries. Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, and jobs.
Criminality, insecurity, weak governance, and the Afghan Government's inability to extend rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth.
Afghanistan's living standards are among the lowest in the world.
While the international community remains committed to Afghanistan's development, pledging over $67 billion at four donors' conferences since 2002, the Government of Afghanistan will need to overcome a number of challenges, including low revenue collection, anemic job creation, high levels of corruption, weak government capacity, and poor public infrastructure.
GDP: (Purchasing Power Parity): $27.36 billion (2010 est.)
GDP: (Official Exchange Rate): $15.61 billion (2010 est.)
GDP- per capita (PPP): $900 (2010 est.)
GDP- composition by sector:
agriculture: 31.6%
industry: 26.3%
services: 42.1%
note: data exclude opium production (2008 est.)
Industries: small-scale production of textiles, soap, furniture, shoes, fertilizer, apparel, food-products, non-alcoholic beverages, mineral water, cement; handwoven carpets; natural gas, coal, copper
Currency: Afghanis (AFA)
Hues of green and orange highlight the extreme ruggedness of the mountainous terrain shown in this false-color satellite image of eastern Afghanistan, near its border with Pakistan. The dark green areas on the right side along rivers indicate agricultural areas. Snow-fed streams allow sufficient irrigation to transform relatively arid soils into productive fields. Image courtesy of USGS.
Further Reading
- US Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook
- World Resources Institute. Agriculture and Food - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Biodiversity and Protected Areas - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Climate and Atmosphere - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Economic Indicators - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Energy and Resources - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Environmental Institutions and Governance - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Forest, Grasslands, and Drylands - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Population, Health and Human Wellbeing - Afghanistan
- World Resources Institute. Water Resources and Freshwater Ecosystems - Afghanistan
Citation
Central Intelligence Agency, World Wildlife Fund, National Aeronautics and Space Administra (Lead Author);CIA World Factbook (Content Source);Peter Saundry (Topic Editor) "Afghanistan". In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth January 12, 2009; Last revised Date January 29, 2012; Retrieved February 9, 2012 <http://www.eoearth.org/article/Afghanistan>
The Authors
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