Ghazni (Dari: غزنی, Pashto: غزني), historically known as Ghaznayn (غزنين) or Ghazna (غزنه), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana (Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Ωπιανή),[2] is a city in southeastern Afghanistan[3] with a population of around 190,000 people.

[1] The city is strategically located along Highway 1, which follows the path that has served as the main road between Kabul and Kandahar for thousands of years.

Situated on a plateau at 2,219 metres (7,280 ft) above sea level, the city is 150 kilometres (93 mi) south of Kabul and is the capital of Ghazni Province.

During the pre-Islamic period, the area was inhabited by various tribes who practiced different religions including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

It fell to several regional powers, including the Timurids and the Delhi Sultanate until it became part of the Hotaki dynasty, which was followed by the Durrani Empire or modern Afghanistan.

In August 2018, the city became the site of the Battle of Ghazni with the Taliban briefly occupying it and taking control of most of the surrounding area.

The city was subsequently incorporated into the empire of Alexander the Great in 329 BCE, and called Alexandria in Opiana.

For nearly two hundred years (977–1163), the city was the dazzling capital of the Ghaznavid Empire, which encompassed much of what is today Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Eastern Iran and Rajasthan.

This was the result of the cultural policy of Sultan Mahmud (reigned 998–1030), who assembled a circle of scholars, philosophers, and poets around his throne in support of his claim to royal status in Iran.

This is the town of the famous warrior-sultan Mahmud ibn Sabuktagin, one of the greatest of rulers, who made frequent raids into India and captured cities and fortresses there.

For more than eight centuries the “Towers of Victory” monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire have survived wars and invasions, the two toffee-colored minarets, adorned with terra-cotta tiles were raised in the early 12th century as monuments to the victories of the Afghan armies that built the empire.

By the time the Ghurids had finalized the Ghaznavid removal from Ghazni, the city was a cultural center of the eastern Islamic world.

The Civil war in Afghanistan and the continued conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance during the 1990s put the relics of Ghazni in jeopardy.

In addition to the destruction and human suffering caused by the fighting, the Taliban also set fire to many buildings in the city.

On 18 May 2020, a suicide Humvee bomber affiliated with the Taliban killed nine Afghan intelligence personnel and injured 40 others at the National Directorate of Security (NDS) unit in Ghazni, also damaging the nearby Islamic Cultural Centre.

Winters are very cold, with a subzero January daily average temperature of −5.9 °C (21.4 °F), mainly due to the high elevation of the city.

The work began later that year and was supervised by the managing director of the Ghazni province Engineer Ahmad Wali Tawakuli.

In 2007, one of the gates on a 50-year-old dam on the Jikhai River broke, bringing up concerns among the inhabitants of Ghazni city about the water supply.

The dam serves as a good source of irrigation water to Ghazni City and the surrounding agricultural areas.

[34][35] Nearby rivers have a history of flooding and causing severe damage and death,[36] though efforts have begun to remedy this.