Since it was part of the ancient Silk Road, it has been a vital trade route between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and a strategic military choke point for various states that controlled it.

[1] Following Asian Highway 1 (AH1), the summit of the pass at the town of Landi Kotal is five kilometres (three miles) inside Pakistan, descending 460 m (1,510 ft) into the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud, about 30 km (19 mi) from the Afghan border by traversing part of the Spin Ghar mountains.

[2] Historical invasions of the Indian subcontinent have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as those of Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek.

[3] The pass has been traversed by military expeditions launched by empires such as the Achaemenids and Sassanids, as well as by nomadic invaders from Central Asia, including the Saka, Yuezhi, and White Huns.

[4][5] The Parthian Empire fought for control of passes such as this to profit from the trade in silk, jade, rhubarb, and other luxuries moving from China to Western Asia and Europe.

[6]: 74 During the Islamic period, Muslim rulers, including Mahmud Ghaznavi, Muhammad of Ghor, Babur and Nader Shah used the Khyber and nearby passes for their invasions of Indian subcontinent.

[7][8] During World War II, concrete dragon's teeth were erected on the valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India.

Passenger services through the pass have been intermittent, with the Khyber Steam Safari, a joint venture between a private company and Pakistan Railways, operating in the 1990s.

[2] The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the hippie trail, taking a bus or car from Kabul to the Afghan border.

[10] This increasingly unstable situation in northwest Pakistan made the US and NATO broaden supply routes, through Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan).