The district headquarter is the city of Peshawar, which is also the capital of Khyber Paktunkhwa.

It was once the center of Gandhara and has subsequently been ruled by Persians, Greeks, Buddhists, Kushans, Afghans, Mughals, Marathas, Sikhs and the British.

[4] Under the latest revision of Pakistan's administrative structure, promulgated in 2001, Peshawar was also given the status of a city district.

[citation needed] As of the 2023 census, Peshawar district has 690,976 households and a population of 4,758,762.

[6] Due to the settlement of Afghan refugees and language shift Pashto has gained ground at the expense of Hindko.

According to linguists, the nearly-extinct Tirahi language was likely spoken in the region before the arrival of the Afghans.

According to the 1897 records during the British Raj, most people living in Peshawar valley were Pathans and belonged to an agricultural community but there was also large number of Punjabi and Hindkowan communities living in the valley; all three ethnolinguistic groups religiously belonged to Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.

[citation needed] Most people in the Peshawar city spoke and understood Urdu.

Elite belonging to small towns such as big feudal Khan families, traders and almost all of Hindus also spoke Urdu.

Persian was also spoken by elites of the Peshawar city and by traders from Kabul.

Majority of the population of the district especially the agriculturists and Pathans only spoke Pashto.

92% of the total population of Peshawar Valley followed Islam and remainder 8% followed Hinduism, Sikhism and other religions.

People belonging to these minority religions primarily lived in major cities such as Peshawar, Charsadda (now in the Charsadda District) and Hoti (now in the Mardan District) and mostly in cantonment areas of these cities.

Soon after, another university by the name of Brains[26] Institute and post graduate college was established.

Apart from excellent range of universities, Peshawar district also has huge numbers of further education (Post School) institutes both in public and private sectors.

Issues regarding the high fee collections in private schools was also reported on multiple occasions.