The Ghurian District (Ghoryan District) is an Afghan

administrative district Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

(Wuleswali) in far western

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

in western

Herat Province Herat ( Persian: ) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north-western part of the country. Together with Badghis, Farah, and Ghor provinces, it makes up the north-western region of Afghanistan. Its primary city a ...

. The district is bordered by

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

to the west and northwest. It is then bordered by other districts of Herat, Kohsan District in the north, Zendeh Jan District to the east, and Adraskan District to the south. The Hari River flows through the northeastern end of the district. The border with Iran is marshy. The population is 85,900 (est. 2012) and the district center is the city of

Ghurian Ghurian (غوريان; Ghūrīān, Ghoryan, Ġūrīān) is a city and the administrative center of Ghurian District in Herat Province, Afghanistan. It is 790 m high with a population of more than 54,000 people. It is situated south of the Hari Ri ...

Economy

After the 1992 fall of the Najibullah government, and with the final withdrawal of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

military aid, Iran began repatriating Afghan refugees. Many refugees who returned to Ghurian after working as migrants in Iran's

saffron Saffron () is a spice derived from the flower of ''Crocus sativus'', commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in ...

industry came with corms and the skills to grow and produce saffron. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

, the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

, and later governments supported growing saffron as a crop that is economically competitive with

opium poppies Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

and, importantly for the arid west, also requires less water than

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

growing. Ghurian farmers led in bringing a small but viable saffron trade to Herat Province.World Bank, Saffron as an alternative to opium poppies
/ref>

References

External links

Districts of Herat Province {{Herat-geo-stub