Essay on Afghanistan: Physical Features, Cultural Patterns and Economic Activity

Tucked in the heart of south-central Asia, Afghanistan is a land-locked and remote nation. The nearest coast is that of the Ara­bian Sea, about 300 miles (483 km) away to the south. Its longest border, of 1,125 miles (1810 km), is with Pakistan to the east and south.

To the west, there is a 510-mile bor­der with Iran, and to the northeast a 200-mile border with the part of Jammu and Kashmir disputed between India and Pakistan, as well as a short 50-mile strip bordering China at the end of the long, narrow Wahan corridor.

In the north is a 1,050-mile border with the three states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikis­tan. These boundaries were created in the late 19th century by a treaty between Brit­ain and Russia, the two rivals gaining political domination in the region. In the late 20th century Afghanistan became a pawn in the struggle over political ideol­ogy and influence by Russia and suffered greatly from the Soviet invasion (1979) and a prolonged civil war (1979-89).

Physical Features:

The most promi­nent feature of this largely highland country is its mountain range, the Hindu Kush, a formidable barrier that roughly di­vides the country into a relatively flat and sloping area to the north, and the remain­ing uplands and deserts in the south. The Hindu Kush is one of the mountain chains that radiate from the Pamirs near the China border and extend westwards to­wards the Iranian border; at its highest, it reaches over 21,000 feet (6,565 meters).

To the east, towards Pakistan, several ranges effectively isolate the interior of the coun­try from the outside world. The mountains are the highest in the northeast section of the country where high moun­tain passes are at between 12,000 and 15,000 feet altitudes; the region in general has deep narrow valleys and lofty moun­tains. To the south of the ranges is the Khyber Pass, which leads to the Indian subcontinent.

Northwest, and north of the Hindu Kush ranges, is a somewhat flatter and more fertile region that borders Tajik­istan and slopes gently towards the Amu River. The average elevation of this essen­tially Central Asian steppe land is about 2,000 feet.

South of the Hindu Kush and its branches is a region of high plateaus, sandy deserts, and semi-deserts with aver­age altitudes of about 3,000 feet. The drainage is entirely inland. In general, Afghanistan experiences very cold winters and hot summers, typi­cal of semi-steppe climates, with regional variations due to altitude and exposure.

While the mountainous regions of the northeast have a subarctic climate with dry, cold winters, areas close to the Paki­stani border are influenced by the Indian monsoons. Much hotter summers and a larger range of temperatures are experi­enced in the southern and western desert areas.

Precipitation ranges from only 3 inches in the western and southwestern de­serts to over 50 inches in the northern Hindu Kush area. Most of the country’s precipitation occurs from December to April, while the summers are mostly hot and dry.

Cultural Patterns:

Historically, Af­ghanistan has been a crossroads that has linked China with Rome, and Central Asia with India. Greek culture, Buddhism, Mongols, Persians, all have left their mark on the land. The region has experienced in­vasions time and again. Greeks, Scythian, Dravidians, Aryans, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, and Persians have all passed through it with India as their ultimate tar­get and have inhabited it at different times to make it an ethnic and linguistic mosaic.

Intermixture of the two principal linguis­tic groups is evident in such people as Hazaras and Chahar Aimaks, who speak Indo-European languages but have pro­nounced Mongolian physical features and cultural traits, usually associated with Cen­tral Asia.

The Pashtuns are the principal group, forming 40 percent of the population of 25.8 million. They occupy mostly the east­ern and southern parts of the country. Their traditional core area is around Kabul, the capital, and spills over into the contiguous territory of Pakistan. Some of the Pashtuns (Pathans) are sedentary and others nomadic.

The Durrani group among the Pashtuns, who inhabit the re­gion between Kabul and Kandahar, essentially form the traditional nucleus of Afghanistan’s social and political elite. The Tajiks, mostly farmers and artisans, ac­count for one-fourth of the country’s population and live mostly in the north­eastern part.

Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz inhabit a region north of the Hindu Kush and collectively account for one-sixth of the population. Uzbeks are the largest Turkic-speaking group in the country representing about 6 percent of the nation’s population. In addition, three percent of the population consists of Cha­har-Aimaks, one percent of Baluchis, and less than one percent of Nuristanis, who speak Dardic tongues. Brahui speakers are related to the Dravidian tongues of south­ern India, but are racially dissimilar to the Dravidians.

Nearly 99 percent of the people in Af­ghanistan are Muslims, of whom three-fourths are members of the Sunnite sect. Shiites account for 15 percent of the population. The Hazaras belong to the Shia sect. Nuristanis are recent converts to Islam (mostly in 1895). Afghanistan is among the least urbanized of the world’s nations. Only 20 percent of the population lives in the cities.

The Soviet invasion of the country in 1979 and the ensuing civil war and destruction of towns and villages resulted in mass movements of people in two major directions—in the east to Paki­stan and in the west to Iran—or to the relative safety of the capital city of Kabul, causing great disruption of the population patterns.

It is estimated that nearly 3.5 mil­lion people escaped to Pakistan and some 2 million to Iran, and the population of Kabul nearly doubled in size between 1980 and 1990. It is estimated that Kabul now contains over a million people, repre­senting a large proportion of the country’s urban population.

Economic Activity:

Afghanistan is pri­marily a rural and agricultural or pastoral country. Nearly 60 percent of the labor force is engaged in agricultural pursuits. Agriculture and animal husbandry consist mainly of subsistence farming and pastoral nomadism. Since much of the land is arid or semi-arid, only one-eighth of the land is under cultivation. Meadows and pastures account for about 45 percent of the land surface.

About half of the cultivated land is irrigated. Cereals, of which wheat, corn, barley, and rice are the principal crops, oc­cupy most of the cultivated area. Cotton, for the domestic textile industry, and fruits and nuts are also important export items. (Pistachio nuts are produced on the north­ern slopes of the Hindu Kush.)

Opium poppies and cannabis are grown for the il­legal international drug trade on substantial scale. Animal husbandry yields meat and dairy products for domestic needs, skins (particularly the famous kara­kul) and wool are important products for export and domestic carpet weaving. Although several minerals are known to exist, exploitation has been poor, arising partly from the country’s unsettled politi­cal climate. Coal has been found in the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, and high-grade iron ore 60 miles (96 km) northwest of Kabul. Copper is also mined near Kabul in some quantities.

The most important recent discovery is that of natu­ral gas, near the Turkmenistan border about 75 miles (120 km) west of Mazar-e- Sharif. Pipelines from there deliver natural gas to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and to thermal and fertilizer plants in Mazar-e-Sharif. Afghanistan’s petroleum reserves are poor. Some lead, zinc, silver, and chrome are also mined.

Afghanistan is potentially rich in hy­dro-electric resources, which remain mostly untapped because the nation’s de­mand for electricity is negligible and projects are unprofitable. These have, there­fore, been exploited only in the demand-areas of Kabul-Jalalabad. Manufac­turing activity is only limited to items based on agricultural and pastoral raw ma­terials.

Cotton textile is by far the most important industry, although some rayon and acetate fibers are also manufactured. A fertilizer plant, based on natural gas, is lo­cated at Mazar-e-Sharif. Natural gas, dried fruits and nuts, carpets, rugs, hides, and cotton are the major exports; and machin­ery, basic manufactures, vehicles, petroleum products, vegetable oils, tea, and textiles are the most important imports.

The So­viet Union has traditionally been the leading trading partner. Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, India, Pakistan, and China are the other trading partners. The country remains at a much lower stage of economic development than most of its neighbors. Between 1956 and 1979, economic growth was guided by sev­eral five-year and seven-year plans, and supported by extensive foreign assistance, primarily from the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Soviet invasion of 1979 and the subsequent civil war, however, se­verely disrupted the country’s development plans. Agricultural production declined and food shortages were reported, and in­dustry stagnated. As a landlocked country, Afghanistan depends on transit facilities from its neigh­bors for its international trade. It has no railroads and only a few navigable rivers, relying mostly on roads as a mainstay of its transport system.

Despite the high cost of road construction in difficult terrain, ef­forts were made, with foreign assistance in the 1960s, to upgrade the highway system and to integrate the main trading centers of the country with one another and with the railheads or road networks of the neighboring countries.

The nation’s road network now connects the railheads of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. Paved roads connect the nation’s leading cities (Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif) with Kabul and frontier towns of the neighboring countries.

Kabul (population: 700,000) is the na­tion’s administrative capital and a major metropolis, located south of the Hindu Kush at the crossroads of the trade routes between the Indian subcontinent and Cen­tral Asia and between the Middle East and the Far East. It is also the country’s main center of economic and cultural activity. Kandahar, second to Kabul in population (225,500), is located close to the Pakistan border on the Asian Highway in the south-central part of the country.

Herat (178,000) is the regional center in the west­ern part of the country on a highway leading to Iran. Mazar-e-Sharif (131,000) is an important commercial and manufactur­ing center, on the highway leading to the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The city has been the tradi­tional entry point for Soviet merchandise.

As a final note, Afghanistan has been, in modern times, a buffer between the two great imperial powers, Britain in India and the Soviet Union. With the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Britain’s interest in the nation virtually disappeared.

The Kremlin has historically looked south­ward, but with the Russian withdrawal in the mid-1980s, Pakistan’s interest in Af­ghanistan has been aroused, partly resulting from the influx of millions of Pashtuni refugees from Afghanistan and partly to secure its own unruly and tribal borderlands that lie between the two coun­tries.

Presently, the country remains in a state of on-going civil war between the feuding tribals and the extremely conserva­tive central administration. The United Nations’ policy towards Afghanistan recog­nizes the desirability of strengthening its domestic economy and of preserving its national integrity. The main roadblock is the unstable political situation that contin­ues unabated in the country.