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Afghan Turkestan is also the name of a former province in this area, which was centred on Mazar-e Sharif and included territory in the modern provinces of Kunduz, Balkh, Jowzjan and Sar-e Pol. The whole territory, from the junction of the Kokcha river with the Amu Darya on the north-east to the province of Herat on the south-west, was some 500 miles in length, with an average width from the Russian frontier to the Hindu Kush of 114 miles (183 km). It thus comprised about 57,000 square miles (148,000 kmē) or roughly two-ninths of the former kingdom of Afghanistan.
The area is agriculturally poor except in the river valleys, being rough and mountainous towards the south, but subsiding into undulating wastes and pasture-lands towards the Turkman desert .
Ethnically and historically Afghan Turkestan is more connected with Bukhara than with Kabul, of which government it has been a dependency only since the time of Dost Mahommed. The bulk of the people of the cities are of Persian and UzbekUzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group found primarily in Uzbekistan, but also in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang province of China and other countries in Central Asia. The Uzbeks predominatly follow Islam (mainly Sunni Islam) in a form that bec stock, but interspersed with them are Mongol Hazaras and HindusThis article is about the Hindu religion; for other meanings of the word, see Hindu (disambiguation). Aum, the most sacred syllable and quintessential symbol of Hinduism, represents the first manifestation of the unmanifest Brahman. Hinduism Santana Dharm with TurkmenTurkmen people (of which the Turkic plural is properly Turkmenler form an ethnic group, part of the Turkic peoples. Turkmen people live in: Afghanistan Iran Turkmenistan Turkmen in Iraq A minority (about 10,000 people) live in Iraq. These people are the d tribes in the Amu Darya plains.
Ancient Balkh or Bactriana was a province of the Achaemenian empire, and probably was occupied in great measure by a race of IranianThe term Iranians can refer to: inhabitants or citizens of the modern nation of Iran, a historical grouping of peoples speaking Indo-Iranian languages and inhabiting a part of Asia on and near the Iranian plateau, which include the Medes and the Persians blood. About 250 BCCenturies: 4th century BC 3rd century BC 2nd century BC Decades: 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC Years: 255 BC 254 BC 253 BC 252 BC 251 BC 250 BC 249 BC 248 BC 247 BC 246 BC 245 BC Events Bactria gai Diodotus (Theodotus), governor of BactriaBactria (Bactriana) was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush ( Caucasus Indicus) and the Amu Darya (Oxus), with the capital Bactra (now Balkh). To the east, it was bordered by the ancient region of Gandhara in the Indi under the SeleucidaeSeleucus I Nicator Nicator "the Victor") (around 358 281 BC) was one of Alexander the Great's generals who, after Alexander's death in 323 BC, founded the Seleucid Empire. He established himself and his family in Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau, rulin, declared his independence, and commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which succumbed to Parthian and nomadic movements about 126 BC. After this came a Buddhist era which has left its traces in the gigantic sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of Haibak. The district was devastated by Genghis Khan, and has never since fully recovered its prosperity. For about a century it belonged to the Delhi empire, and then fell into Uzbeg hands. In the 18th century it formed part of the dominion of Ahmad Khan Durani, and so remained under his son Timur. But under the fratricidal wars of Timur's sons the separate khanates fell back under the independent rule of various Uzbek chiefs. At the beginning of the 19th century they belonged to Bukhara; but under the emir Dost Mahommed the Afghans recovered Balkh and Tashkurgan in 1850, Akcha and the four western khanates in 1855, and Kunduz in 1859. The sovereignty over Andkhui, Shibarghan, Saripul and Maimana was in dispute between Bukhara and Kabul until settled by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873 in favour of the Afghan claim. Under the strong rule of Abdur Rahman these outlying territories were closely welded to Kabul; but after the accession of Habibullah the bonds once more relaxed.
Afghanistan