The provinces of Afghanistan ( '' wilāyat'') are the primary

administrative division Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

is divided into 34 provinces. Each province encompasses a number of districts or usually over 1,000 villages. Provincial governors played a critical role in the reconstruction of the Afghan state following the creation of the new government under Hamid Karzai. According to international security scholar Dipali Mukhopadhyay, many of the provincial governors of the western-backed government were former

warlord Warlords are individuals who exercise military, Economy, economic, and Politics, political control over a region, often one State collapse, without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over Militia, local ...

s who were incorporated into the political system.

Provinces of Afghanistan

Administrative

The following table lists the province, capital, number of districts, UN region, region, ISO 3166-2:AF code and license plate code.

Demographic

The following table lists the province, population in 2024, area in square kilometers and population density.

Regions of Afghanistan

The following tables summarize data from the demographic table.

UN regions

Former provinces of Afghanistan

During Afghanistan's history it had a number of provinces in it. It started out as just Kabul, Herat, Qandahar, and Balkh but the number of provinces increased and by 1880 the provinces consisted of Balkh, Herat, Qandahar, Ghazni, Jalalabad, and Kabul. * Southern Province – dissolved in 1964 to create Paktia Province. * Turkestan Province – dissolved somewhere between 1929 and 1946. * Qataghan-Badakhshan Province – dissolved in 1963 into Badakhshan Province and Qataghan Province, the latter of which was also dissolved that same year. * Qataghan Province – dissolved in 1963 into Baghlan Province,

Kunduz Province Kunduz () is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northern part of the country next to Tajikistan. The population of the province is around 1,136,677, which is mostly a tribal society; it is one of Afghanistan's most ethnically ...

, and Takhar Province. * Eastern Province – dissolved in 1964 to create

Nangarhar Province Nangarhār (Pashto: ; Dari: ), also called Nangrahar or Ningrahar, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country and Border, bordering Logar Province, Logar, Kabul Province, Kabul, Laghman Province, Laghm ...

. * Farah-Chakansur Province – dissolved in 1964 into Farah Province and

Nimruz Province Nimruz or Nimroz (Balochi language, Balochi: ; Dari, Pashto language, Pashto: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southwestern part of the country. It lies to the east of the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran and nor ...

. *

Mazar-i-Sharif Province Mazar-i-Sharif Province is a defunct province of Afghanistan, which in 1964 was divided into Balkh Province and Jowzjan Province. The former province's capital was Mazar-i-Sharif. it had a population of 944,020. In 1929, the province was gover ...

– dissolved in 1964 into Balkh Province and Jowzjan Province. * Meymaneh Province – dissolved in 1964 into

Badghis Province Bādghīs () is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northwest of the country, on the border with Turkmenistan. It is considered to be one of the country's most underdeveloped provinces, with the highest poverty rate. T ...

and Faryab Province.

References

External links

Afghanistan Information Management Services (AIMS)

Afghanistan Provinces MapXavier de Planhol, 2000, ''GEOGRAPHY i. Evolution of geographical knowledge: Development of geographical knowledge about Afghanistan.'', Encyclopædia Iranica.
{{Articles on first-level administrative divisions of Asian countries Subdivisions of Afghanistan Provinces, Afghanistan Afghanistan 1 Subdivisions of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan