Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the north, and Tajikistan and China to the northeast. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominately mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest that are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. As of 2021, its population is 40.2 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Kabul is the country's largest city and serves as its capital.
Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last king of Afghanistan, reigning from 8 November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973. Serving for 40 years, Zahir was the longest-serving ruler of Afghanistan since the foundation of the Durrani Empire in the 18th century. He expanded Afghanistan's diplomatic relations with many countries, including with both sides of the Cold War. In the 1950s, Zahir Shah began modernizing the country, culminating in the creation of a new constitution and a constitutional monarchy system. Demonstrating nonpartisanship, his long reign was marked by peace in the country that was lost afterwards.
The following lists events that happened during 1961 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1951 in Afghanistan.
Kandahār is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southern part of the country, sharing a border with Pakistan, to the south. It is surrounded by Helmand in the west, Uruzgan in the north and Zabul Province in the east. Its capital is the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, which is located on the Arghandab River. The greater region surrounding the province is called Loy Kandahar. The Emir of Afghanistan sends orders to Kabul from Kandahar making it the de facto capital of Afghanistan, although the main government body operates it Kabul. All meetings with the Emir take place in Kandahar, meetings excluding the Emir are in Kabul.
The prime minister of Afghanistan is a post within the cabinet of Afghanistan. The position was created in 1927 as an official appointed by the King of Afghanistan. The holder served mostly as an advisor, until the end of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1973. During the 1980s, the position was the head of government. The post was abolished after the US invasion, after which a presidential form of government was established which lasted from 2004 to 2021. After the US withdrawal and the re-establishment of the Taliban rule, the post was revived.
The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA), also known as the Afghan Transitional Authority, was the name of a temporary administration of Afghanistan put in place by the loya jirga of June 2002. It succeeded the original Islamic State of Afghanistan and preceded the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021).
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between late 1996 to 2001 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was originally assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni, Amrullah Saleh and others.
The Hotak dynasty was an Afghan monarchy founded by Ghilji Pashtuns that briefly ruled portions of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1720s. It was established in April 1709 by Mirwais Hotak, who led a successful revolution against the declining Persian Safavid empire in the region of Loy Kandahar in what is now southern Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2000 in Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and the United States began in 1921 under the leaderships of Amanullah Khan and Warren G. Harding, respectively. The first contact between the two nations occurred further back in the 1830s when the first recorded person from the United States explored Afghanistan. The United States began investing some money in landlocked Afghanistan, which ended before the 1978 Saur Revolution. Beginning in 1980, the United States began admitting thousands of Afghan refugees for resettlement, and provided money and weapons to the Mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The 1989–1992 Afghan Civil War took place between the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan on 15 February 1989 until 27 April 1992, the day after the proclamation of the Peshawar Accords proclaiming a new interim Afghan government which was supposed to start serving on 28 April 1992.
The following lists events that happened during 1955 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1962 in the Kingdom of Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1973 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1989 in Afghanistan.
Abdullah Abdullah is an Afghan politician who led the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), which was expected to lead the intra-Afghan peace talks with the Taliban, from 2020 to 2021. He served as Chief Executive of Afghanistan from September 2014 to March 2020 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from December 2001 to April 2005. Prior to that he was a senior member of the Northern Alliance, working as an adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud. He worked as an ophthalmologist and medical doctor in the 1980s.
Waqar Salamkheil is an Afghan cricketer. He made his Test cricket debut for the Afghanistan cricket team in March 2019.
Afghanistan–France relations refers to the diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and France. Both nations are members of the United Nations.
Mohammad Hasan Akhund is an Afghan mullah, politician and Taliban leader who is currently the acting prime minister of Afghanistan. Akhund is one of the founding members of the Taliban and has been a senior leading member of the movement. In the first Taliban government (1996–2001), he served as the deputy foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Afghanistan.
