MEYMANEH

also spelled Maimana town, northwestern Afghanistan. It lies at the northern foot of the Torkestan Mountain Range at an elevation of 2,850 feet (870 m). The town serves an agricultural area irrigated from the Qeysar River and also handles the trade in Karakul sheep with nomads. Meymaneh is linked with neighbouring towns by highways, but they are impassable in places during spring floods. Meymaneh was the capital of a semiautonomous Uzbek khanate until its subjection by the emir of Afghanistan in 1868. In 1885 a Russo-Afghan boundary commission formally allotted the khanate to Afghanistan. Pop. (1988 est.) 45,100.