[[Image:AfghanTurk.PNG|thumb|right|250px|Map showing approximate boundaries of '''Afghan Turkestan''' with respect to modern-day provinces of [[Afghanistan]]]]
'''Afghan Turkestan''' is a northwestern part of [[Afghanistan]], on the border with the former [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republic]]s of [[Turkmenistan]] and [[Uzbekistan]].

Afghan Turkestan is also the name of a former province in this area, which was centred on [[Mazari Sharif]] and included territory in the modern provinces of [[Kunduz province|Kunduz]], [[Balkh province|Balkh]], [[Jowzjan province|Jowzjan]] and [[Sar-e Pol province|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 province|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 km²) or roughly two-ninths of the former kingdom of Afghanistan.

==Geography==

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]].

==Population==

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 Khan|Dost Mahommed]]. The bulk of the people of the cities are of [[Persians|Persian]] ([[Tajiks]]) and [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] ([[Uzbek people|Uzbek]]) stock, but interspersed with them are Mongol [[Hazara people|Hazara]]s, and [[Pashtuns]] with [[Turkmen people|Turkmen]] tribes in the Amu Darya plains.

==History==

Ancient Balkh or Bactriana was a province of the [[Achaemenian Empire]], and probably was occupied in great measure by a race of [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] blood. About [[250 BC]] [[Diodotus of Bactria|Diodotus (Theodotus)]], governor of [[Bactria]] under the [[Seleucid dynasty|Seleucidae]], declared his independence, and commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which succumbed to [[Parthia]]n and nomadic movements about [[126 BC]]. After this came a [[Buddhism|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 Khan|Abdur Rahman]] these outlying territories were closely welded to Kabul; but after the accession of Habibullah the bonds once more relaxed.

[[Category:Geography of Afghanistan]]
[[Category:Subdivisions of Afghanistan]]