AFGHANISTAN, FLAG OF

horizontally striped green-white-black national flag with a central gold coat of arms. Its width-to-length ratio is 1 to 2. During the 20th century there have been 17 national flags for Afghanistan. In 1928 Amanollah Khan, having just returned from a trip to Europe, was determined to introduce modern principles into the country. He chose a tricolour of black for the dark ages of the past, red for the blood shed in the independence struggle, and green for the hope and wealth of the future. Amanollah was soon overthrown by reactionary forces, and the old Afghan flag (a white emblem on a black field) was restored. When Mohammad Nader Shah came to the throne, the tricolour was resurrected and continued in use from 1929 to 1973, when the monarchy was overthrown and a republic established. Under the republic the stripes were placed in a horizontal position and a new coat of arms was developed; between 1978 and 1992, however, flags reflected the ruling communist regimes. After a bitter and protracted civil war, Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the government. Their flag, adopted on December 3, 1992, contains stripes of green-white-black with a central coat of arms in gold. Muslim values are emphasized in the design of the arms and in its Arabic inscriptions, which are translated as "Islamic State of Afghanistan," "God is great," and "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God." The coat of arms also features a mosque, two crossed sabres, and sheaves of wheat. The government that adopted this flag was reduced to control over only a few provinces in the north, but internationally its flag is still recognized for Afghanistan. The even more reactionary Muslim forces known as the Taliban (Taleban) fly white flags in the rest of the country. Whitney Smith History Last Afghan Empire Overthrow of foreign rule Periodic attempts were made to gain independence. In 1709 Mir Veys Khan, a leader of the Hotaki Ghilzay tribe, led a successful rising against Gorgin Khan, the Persian governor of Qandahar. The Hotakis Mir Veys Khan governed Qandahar until his death in 1715. In 1716 the Abdalis of Herat, encouraged by his example, took up arms against the Persians and under their leader, Asadullah Khan, succeeded in liberating their province. Mahmud, Mir Veys's young son and successor, was not content with holding Qandahar, and in 1722 he led some 20,000 men against Isfahan; the Safavid government surrendered after a six-month siege. Mahmud died in 1725 and was succeeded by Ashraf, who had to contend with Russian pressure from the north and Ottoman Turk advances from the west. Shah Ashraf halted both the Russian and Turkish onslaughts, but a brigand chief, Nader Qoli Beg, defeated the Afghans at Damghan in October 1729 and drove them from Persia. During the retreat Ashraf was murdered, probably on orders from his cousin, who was then holding Qandahar. History Variations on the word "Afghan" may go back as early as a 3rd-century-AD Sasanian reference to "Abgan." The earliest Muslim reference to the Afghans probably dates to AD 982, but tribes related to the modern Afghans have lived in the region for many generations. For millennia, the land now called Afghanistan has been the meeting place of four cultural and ecological areas: the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia. Prehistory Paleolithic peoples probably roamed Afghanistan as early as 100,000 BC. The earliest definite evidence of human occupation was found in the cave of Darra-i-Kur in Badakhshan, where a transitional Neanderthal skull fragment in association with Mousterian-type tools was discovered; the remains are of the Middle Paleolithic, dating about 30,000 years ago. Caves near Aq Kopruk yielded evidence of an early Neolithic culture (c. 9000-6000 BC) based on domesticated animals. Archaeological research since World War II has revealed Bronze Age sites, dating both before and after the Indus Valley (or Harappan) civilization of the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC. There was trade with Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Egypt, the main export from the Afghan area being lapis lazuli from the mines of Badakhshan. In addition, a site with definite links to the Harappan civilization has been excavated at Shortugai near the Amu River, northeast of Konduz. The economy When Afghanistan began to plan the development of its economy in the mid-1950s, it lacked not only the necessary social organization and institutions for modern economic activities but also managerial and technical skills. The country was at a much lower stage of economic development than most of its neighbours. Between 1956 and 1979, however, the country's economic growth was guided by several five-year and seven-year plans and was aided by extensive foreign assistance, primarily from the Soviet Union and the United States. Roads, dams, power plants, and factories were constructed, irrigation projects carried out, and education broadened. The Soviet invasion in 1979 and the subsequent civil war severely disrupted Afghanistan's economic development. Agricultural production declined, food shortages were reported, and, with the exception of natural gas production and some other industries considered essential by the Soviet Union, industrial output stagnated. Thus, Afghanistan remains economically one of the world's poorest countries. Management of the economy The socialist government is committed to developing a mixed, guided economy by means of a series of five-year plans. In practice, the effectiveness of such a policy has been limited by the paucity of government resources, by a cumbersome bureaucracy, and by a shortage in technical personnel. Before the Soviet invasion, the government budget was divided into two parts, ordinary and development. The former covered administrative activities and the latter investment expenditures, incorporated into the national plans of development. Total domestic revenue was usually exceeded by expenditures; the difference was covered through deficit financing and foreign loans and grants. Following the Soviet invasion, a balanced budget was achieved with revenue derived principally from the sale of natural gas and from foreign loans and grants. Expenditures were mainly for government ministries, the developmental budget, and foreign debt service. The private sector engages primarily in agriculture and livestock breeding. There formerly was a mixed pattern of small, medium, and large landholdings, but this system underwent drastic change, particularly after 1978. The bulk of the trade and transport and most manufacturing were in the hands of private entrepreneurs until the late 1970s when these sectors of the economy were nationalized. Public enterprise formerly was confined to a section of the foreign trade, to mining, and to some industries. Because most of the population is engaged in agriculture, the industrial labour force is insignificant, and labour unions have failed to develop. Traditional loyalties to families and tribes are stronger than those to workers' organizations. The land Relief Afghanistan's shape has been compared to a leaf, of which the Vakhan strip forms the stem. The outstanding geographic feature of Afghanistan is its mountain range, the Hindu Kush (in Afghanistan, Hendu Kosh). This formidable range is a barrier between the comparatively fertile northern provinces and the rest of the country, and it creates the major pitch of Afghanistan from northeast to southwest. The Hindu Kush, when it reaches a point some 100 miles north of Kabul, spreads out and continues westward under the names of Baba, Bayan, Safid Kuh (Paropamisus), and others, each section in turn sending spurs in different directions. One of these spurs is the Torkestan Mountains, which extend northwestward. Other important ranges include the Kasa Murgh, south of the Hari River; the Hhsar Mountains, which extend northward; and two formidable ranges, the Mazar and the Khurd, extending in a southwestern direction. On the eastern frontier with Pakistan, several mountain ranges effectively isolate the interior of the country from the rain-laden winds that blow from the Indian Ocean, accounting for the dryness of the climate. The Hindu Kush and subsidiary ranges divide Afghanistan into three distinct geographic regions, which roughly can be designated as the Central Highlands, the Northern Plains, and the Southwestern Plateau. The Central Highlands, actually a part of the Himalayan chain, include the main Hindu Kush range. Its area of about 160,000 square miles is a region of deep, narrow valleys and lofty mountains, some peaks of which rise above 21,000 feet. High mountain passes, generally situated between 12,000 and 15,000 feet above sea level, are of great strategic importance and include the Shebar Pass, located northwest of Kabul where the Baba Mountains meet the Hindu Kush, and the Khyber Pass, which leads to the Indian subcontinent, on the Pakistan border southeast of Kabul. The Badakhshan area in the northeastern part of the Central Highlands is the location of the epicentres for many of the 50 or so earthquakes that occur in the country each year. The Northern Plains region, north of the Central Highlands, extends eastward from the Iranian border to the foothills of the Pamirs, near the border with Tajikistan. It comprises 40,000 square miles of plains and fertile foothills sloping gently toward the Amu River (the ancient Oxus River). This area is a part of the much larger Central Asian steppe, from which it is separated by the Amu River. The average elevation is about 2,000 feet. The Northern Plains region is intensively cultivated and densely populated. In addition to fertile soils, the region possesses rich mineral resources, particularly deposits of natural gas. The Southwestern Plateau, south of the Central Highlands, is a region of high plateaus, sandy deserts, and semideserts. The average altitude is about 3,000 feet. The Southwestern Plateau covers about 50,000 square miles, one-fourth of which forms the sandy Rigestan Desert. The smaller Margow Desert of salt flats and desolate steppe lies west of the Rigestan Desert. Several large rivers cross the Southwestern Plateau; among them are the Helmand River and its major tributary, the Arghandab. Most of Afghanistan lies between 2,000 and 10,000 feet in elevation. Along the Amu River in the north and the delta of the Helmand River in the southwest, the altitude is about 2,000 feet. The Sistan depression of the Southwestern Plateau, 1,500 to 1,700 feet in elevation, was the seat of a flourishing ancient civilization that was ended in the 14th century by Timur (Tamerlane). Drainage Practically the entire drainage system of Afghanistan is enclosed within the country. Only the rivers in the east, which drain an area of 32,000 square miles, reach the sea. The Kabul River, the major eastern stream, flows into the Indus River in Pakistan, which empties into the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean. Almost all the other important rivers of the country originate in the Central Highlands region and empty into inland lakes or dry up in sandy deserts. The major drainage systems are those of the Amu, Helmand, Kabul, and Hari. The Amu, a 1,578-mile-long river originating in the glaciers of the Pamirs, drains an area of approximately 93,000 square miles in the northeastern and northern parts of the country. It forms the frontier between Afghanistan and the republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for about 600 miles of its upper course. Two of its major Afghan tributaries, the Kowkcheh and the Qonduz, rise in the mountains of Badakhshan and Konduz provinces. The Amu becomes navigable from its confluence with the Kowkcheh, 60 miles west of the city of Feyzabad. It empties into the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. The northwestern drainage system is dominated by the Hari River, originating on the western slopes of the Baba Mountains, at an altitude of 9,000 feet. The river flows westward, just south of Herat and across the broad Herat Valley. After irrigating the fertile lands of the valley, the Hari River turns north about 80 miles west of Herat and forms the border between Afghanistan and Iran for a distance of 65 miles. It then crosses into Turkmenistan and disappears in the Kara-Kum Desert. The principal river in the southwest is the 715-mile-long Helmand, which rises in the Baba Mountains, about 50 miles west of Kabul. With its many tributaries, mainly the Arghandab, it drains more than 100,000 square miles. The river empties into the Saberi, an inland lake. In its course through the southern region of the country, the Helmand flows north of the Rigestan Desert and then crosses the Margow Desert until it reaches a region of seasonal lakes in the Sistan depression. The largest drainage system in the southeastern region is that of the Kabul River, which flows eastward from the slopes of the Mazar Range to join the Indus River at Attock, Pak. Its major tributary in the south is the Lowgar. Afghanistan has few lakes of any considerable size. The two most important are Lake Saberi in the southwest and the saline Lake Istadeh-ye Moqor, situated 60 miles south of Ghazni in the southeast. There are five small lakes in the Baba Mountains known as the Amir lakes; they are noted for their unusual shades of colour, from milky white to dark green, caused by the underlying bedrock. The people Ethnolinguistic groups The people of Afghanistan form a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. Pashto (Pushtu) and Dari, a dialect of Persian (Farsi), are Indo-European languages; they are the official languages of the country. More than one-third of the population speaks Pashto, the language of the Pashtuns, while about half of the population speaks Dari, the language of the Tajik, Hazara, Chahar Aimak, and Kizilbash peoples. Other Indo-European languages, spoken by smaller groups, include Western Dardic (Nuristani or Kafiri), Baluchi, and a number of Indic and Pamiri languages spoken principally in isolated valleys in the northeast. Turkic languages, a subfamily of the Altaic languages, are spoken by the Uzbek and Turkmen peoples, the most recent settlers, who are related to peoples from the steppes of Central Asia. The Turkic languages are closely related; within Afghanistan they include Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz, the last spoken by a small group in the extreme northeast. The present population of Afghanistan contains a number of elements, which, in the course of history and as a result of large-scale migration and conquests, have been superimposed upon one another. Dravidians, Indo-Aryans, Greeks, Scythians, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols have at different times inhabited the country and influenced its culture and ethnography. Intermixture of the two principal linguistic groups is evident in such peoples as the Hazaras and Chahar Aimaks, who speak Indo-European languages but have pronounced Mongoloid physical characteristics and cultural traits usually associated with Central Asia. The Pashtuns of Afghanistan principally inhabit the southern and eastern parts of the country but are also well represented in the west and north. They are divided into a number of tribes, some sedentary and others nomadic. The traditional homeland of the Pashtuns lies in an area east, south, and southwest of Kabul; many live in contiguous territory of Pakistan. The two most important groups of the Pashtun tribal confederation are the Durranis, who live in the area around the city of Qandahar, and the Ghilzays, who inhabit the region between Kabul and Qandahar. The Durranis formed the traditional nucleus of Afghanistan's social and political elite. The Tajiks, mostly farmers and artisans, live in the Kabol and Badakhshan provinces of the northeast and the Herat region in the west; there are also pockets of Tajiks in other areas. They are sedentary in the plains and semisedentary in the higher valleys. The Tajiks are not divided into clear-cut tribal groups. The Nuristanis, who speak Western Dardic, inhabit an area of some 5,000 square miles in Laghman, Nangarhar, and Konarha provinces, north and east of Kabul. The Hazaras traditionally occupy the central mountainous region of Hazarajat. Because of the scarcity of land, however, many have migrated to other parts of the country. The Hazaras speak a Dari dialect that contains a number of Turkish and Mongolian words. The Chahar Aimaks are probably of Turkic or Turco-Mongolian origin, judging by their Mongoloid physical appearance and their housing of Mongolian-style yurts. They are located mostly in the western part of the central mountain region. The Uzbeks and Turkmens inhabit a region north of the Hindu Kush, and there are small numbers of Kyrgyz in the Vakhan in the extreme northeast. The Uzbeks are usually farmers, while the Turkmens and Kyrgyz are mainly seminomadic herdsmen. The Uzbeks are the largest Turkic-speaking group in Afghanistan. There are also other smaller Turco-Mongolian groups. Afghanistan has very small ethnic groups of Dravidian and Semitic speakers. Dravidian languages are spoken by the Brahuis, residing in the extreme south. There are also a small number of Jews, most of whom speak Dari in their daily lives but use Hebrew for religious ceremonies. Religion About 99 percent of the people of Afghanistan are Muslims, of whom some three-fourths are members of the Sunnite sect (Hanafi branch). The others, particularly the Hazaras, Kizilbash, and a few Isma'ilis, follow Shi'ite Islam. The Nuristanis are descendants of a large ethnic group, the Kafirs, who were forcibly converted to Islam in 1895; the name of their region was then changed from Kafiristan ("Land of the Infidels") to Nuristan ("Land of Light"). There are also a few thousand Hindus and Sikhs.