Facts About Kandahar, Afghanistan

Kandahar is a historic city in Afghanistan, at an elevation of 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) in the warmer, southeastern part of the country, where snow rarely lies for long. It is accordingly famed for its fruits and vegetables, as well as cereals, grown on land irrigated by underground canals, or qanats. These foodstuffs are exported to the colder regions of northern Afghanistan and to Pakistan. Kandahar (Qandahar) forms with Kabul and Herat a strategic triangle, possession of which gives military control of Afghanistan; hence the region has been of commercial and political importance all through recorded history. The modern town, comprising old narrow streets and modern roads, is on the paved highway running northwestward to Herat and Iran. Kandahar has a population of 324,800 (2006 est.).

 

In Hellenistic times, Kandahar was a center of the region of Arachosia. Buddhism was early introduced there, possibly by the Indian emperor Asoka (3d century B.C.). The name of the city must be connected with the ancient kingdom of Gandhara. The actual city site has varied at different stages in its history, and the site occupied from Hellenistic times until the 18th century, 3 miles (5 km) from the present city, is now being investigated archaeologically. Islamic control replaced a native Iranian dynasty by the 9th century A.D.

In the mid-18th century, Kandahar became the center of the Durrani Afghans, who subsequently took power as kings of Afghanistan but transferred their capital to Kabul. Until the late 19th century Kandahar had a fairly disturbed history, with civil warfare between rival princes and British occupations during the Afghan wars of 1839–1842 and 1878–1880, on the latter occasion becoming briefly the center of a separate Afghan principality.

 

Lying as it does in a region ethnically strongly Pushtun (Pathan), Kandahar served as the spiritual headquarters of the Taliban during and after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. As such, it played a prominent role in a revival of the Pushtu (Pashto) language and its literature. The city is, however, socially conservative and has lagged behind Kabul in educational and social progress. Kandahar, the last major Taliban stronghold, surrendered to opposition forces backed by the United States on Dec. 7, 2001.