Ethnic groups in Afghanistan
The population of the country consists of numerous ethnolinguistic groups: mainly the Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek, as well as the minorities of Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz, Moghol, and others.
[16] After the rise of the Hotaki dynasty in 1709 and the Durrani Empire in 1747, Pashtuns expanded by forming communities in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Since the 3rd century AD and onward they are mostly referred to by the ethnonym "Afghan", a name believed to be given to them by neighboring Persian people.
[20] Historically, Tajiks were not[21] and as of 2022[22] still widely are not considered to be a distinct ethnic group but rather a collection of several sedentary Sunni Muslims who spoke a Persian dialect as their mother tongue.
[23] The Tajiks usually refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village that they are from rather than by tribes,[24] for example: Badakhshi, Baghlani, Mazari, Panjsheri, Kabuli, Herati, Kohistani, etc.
[27] Tajiks are mainly descended from Bactrians and Sogdians, and are native to Northern Afghanistan, as they have continually inhabited the region for many millennia.
[16] Some notable Hazaras of Afghanistan include: Abdul Ali Mazari, Commander Shafi Hazara, Sadiqi Nili, Ismael Balkhi, Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, Sultan Ali Keshtmand, Abdul Wahed Sarābi, Karim Khalili, Habiba Sarābi, Sarwar Danish, Sima Samar, Ramazan Bashardost, Muhammad Arif Shah Jahan, Abdul Haq Shafaq, Sayed Anwar Rahmati, Qurban Ali Urozgani, Azra Jafari, Ahmad Shah Ramazan, Muhammad Mohaqiq, Ahmad Behzad, Nasrullah Sadiqi Zada Nili, Abbas Noyan, Fahim Hashimi, Rohullah Nikpai, Hamid Rahimi, Mohammad Ebrahim Khedri, Wakil Hussain Allahdad, and Dawood Sarkhosh.
The Uzbeks are one of the main Turkic ethnic group in Afghanistan, whose native territory is in the northern regions of the country.
Most likely the Uzbeks migrated with a wave of Turkic invaders and intermingled with local Iranic tribes over time to become the ethnic group they are today.
[41] They live among non-tribal people in the central and western highlands of Afghanistan, especially in Badghis, Ghor, and Herat provinces.
They practice Sunni Islam, speak the Dari and Aimaqi dialects of Persian, and refer to themselves with tribal designations.
Unlike the Uzbeks, however, the Turkmens are traditionally a nomadic people (though they were forced to abandon this way of life in Turkmenistan itself under Soviet rule).
In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan reached an agreement on various frontier areas to the British Empire for a period of time, Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign in Kafiristan and followed up his conquest with forced conversion of the Kafirs to Islam;[45][46] the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan, the "Land of Light".
[54][55] Nuristan has also received abundance of settlers from the surrounding Afghanistan regions due to the borderline vacant location.
The styles of hats are especially varied: one can spot someone from the Wakhan, as opposed to from Ruhshon or Shugnon valleys, based solely on headwear.
[63][failed verification][better source needed] They follow Sunni Islam and mainly live in the cities of Herat, Ghazni, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kabul.
[65][66] The Gujar people predominantly inhabit northeastern regions of Afghanistan, including Kapisa, Baghlan, Balkh, Kunduz, Takhar, Badakhshan, Nuristan, Laghman, Nangarhar, and Khost.
[73] Hazaras tend to be mostly concentrated in the wider "Hazarajat" region of central Afghanistan,[74] while Uzbeks are densely populated in the north.
[75] Some places are very diverse: the city of Kabul, for example, has been considered a "melting pot" where large populations of the major ethnic groups reside, albeit traditionally with a distinct "Kabuli" identity.
[78] An additional 3 million or so Afghans are temporarily housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, most of whom were born and raised in those two countries.
