North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan
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| North-West Frontier Province | |
| Image:Pk-nwf.gif | Image:PakistanNorthWestFrontier.png |
| Capital • Coordinates | Peshawar • 34.00° N 71.32° E |
| Population (2003) • Density | 19,343,242 [1] • 259.6/km² |
| Area | 74,521 km² |
| Time zone | PST (UTC +5) |
| Main language(s) | Pashto Hindko Persian Khowar |
| Status | Province |
| • Districts | • 24 |
| • Towns | • |
| • Union Councils | • |
| Established • Governor/Commissioner • Chief Minister • Legislature (seats) | 1st July 1970 • Khalid-ur-Rehman • Akram Khan Durrani • Provincial Assembly (124) |
| Website | Gov't of NWFP |
The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) is the smallest of the four provinces of Pakistan and is home to the Pashtuns (Afghans) and various other groups. Neighbouring regions include Afghanistan to the west and north, and the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir to the northeast and east. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas stand as a buffer between the NWFP and parts of Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory are to the south and east. The principal language is Pashto and the provincial capital is Peshawar. Some Pashtuns refer to the province as Pakhtunkhwa which means 'Land of the Pashtuns' in Pashto, while other Pakistanis sometimes refer to the province as 'Sarhad' in Urdu.
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Geography
Image:KhyberPassPakistan.jpg The NWFP sits mainly on the Iranian plateau and lies primarily in Central Asia, while parts of it overlap onto South Asia as well and this has led to considerable seismic activity (see 2005 Kashmir earthquake) in the province. The famous Khyber Pass links the province to Afghanistan, while the Attock bridge is a major crossing point over the Indus river in the east. The province has an area of 74,521 km² and its districts include Hazara Division, home to the town of Havelian, the western starting point of the Karakoram Highway. The capital and largest city of the province is Peshawar and other main cities include Nowshera, Mardan, Mansehra, Charsadda and Abbottabad.
The province's main districts include Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Bannu, Peshawar, and Hazara Division.
The region varies in topography from dry rocky areas in the south to forests and green plains in the north. The climate can be extreme with intensely hot summers to freezing cold winters. Despite these extremes in weather, agriculture remains important and viable in the area. The hilly terrain of Swat, Kalam, Naran and Kaghan is renowned for its beauty and attracts a great many tourists from neighbouring regions and from around the world. Swat-Kalam is also termed 'a piece of Switzerland' as there are many landscape similarities between it and the mountainous terrain of Switzerland.
The chai-khanas of Peshawar's Old City allow visitors to witness the multicultural inhabitants in a relaxed setting. The Khyber Bazaar, Qissa Kahani Bazaar and other parts of Peshawar can remind visitors of an Arabian Nights tale.
The Takht-i-Bahi is perhaps the most impressive Buddhist ruin in the province and dates back to the 1st century BCE.
It covers an area of 74,521 sq. km. According to the 1998 census, the total population of N.W.F.P. was approximately 14 million out of whom 52% are males and 48% females. The density of population is 187 per sq. km and the intercensal change of population is of about 30 percent. Geographically the province could be divided into two zones: the northern one extending from the ranges of the Hindukush to the borders of Peshawar basin; and the southern one extending from Peshawar to the Derajat basin. The northern zone is cold and snowy in winters with heavy rainfall and pleasant summers with the exception of Peshawar basin which is hot in summer and cold in winter. It has moderate rainfall. The southern zone is raid with hot summers and relatively cold winters and scantly rainfall. Its climate varies from very cold (Chitral in the north) to very hot in places like D.I. Khan.
Its snow-capped peaks and lush green valleys of unusual beauty attract tourists and mountaineers from far and wide while its art and architecture no less known than the historic Khyber Pass. Once the cradle of Gandhara civilization, the area is now known for its devout Muslims who jealously guard their religion and culture and the way of life which they have been following for centuries.
Climate
Demographics and Society
The NWFP has an estimated population of roughly 21 million that does not include more than 3 million Afghan refugees and their descendents in the province.[2]
The major language spoken in the NWFP is Pashto, and most of its residents are Pashtuns, especially in the lowlands and the southern areas of the NWFP. The main local tribes include the Marwat Afridi, Orakzai, Bangash, Khattak, Mahsud, Mohmand, Wazir, and Yusufzai and many other smaller tribes. Further north, live other tribes including the Swatis, Tareens, Jadoons and Mashwanis.
The mountainous extreme northern regions of the province known as the Kohistan District is also home to diverse ethnic groups and languages, such as Khowar, Hindko, Kohistani, Shina, Torwali, Kashmiri and Kalami.
In addition, Afghan refugees, although predominantly Pashtun (including the Ghilzai and Durrani tribes), include hundreds of thousands of Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras as well other smaller groups found throughout the province.
Nearly all of the inhabitants of the NWFP are Muslim with a Sunni majority and significant minority of Shias and Ismailis. The warlike Pathans, who live in NWFP and the adjoining areas of Afghanistan, making them a race apart, a chosen people, and no one, has ever managed to subdue them. The Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs, British and Russians have suffered defeat at their hands. The Pathans are divided into numerous sub-tribes and clans, each defending its territory and honor. In addition, the Pathans serve as Pakistan's first line of defense along the Durand Line, the border drawn in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, then foreign secretary of British India.
History
Image:Shabkadr Fort outside Peshawar attacked by tribesmen.jpg
Ancient History
Since ancient times the NWFP region has been invaded by numerous groups including the Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Mughals, Sikhs, and the British. It has been speculated that early pre-Aryan populations in the NWFP were an Elamo-Dravidian group, but this remains unproven. Between 2000 and 1500 BCE Aryan invaders split off into an Iranian branch, represented by the Pakhtuns who dominated most of the region, and various Dardic peoples which came to populate much of the north.
The Vale of Peshawar was home to the Kingdom of Gandhara starting around the 6th century BCE and later ancient Peshawar became a capital of the Kushan Empire. The region was visited by such notable historical figures as Darius II, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Winston Churchill among others.
The region was, in ancient times, a major center of Buddhism as attested by recent archaeological and hermeneutic evidence.
"The region of Ghandara has long been known as a major center of Buddhist art and culture around the beginning of the Christian era. But until recently, the Buddhist literature of this region was almost entirely lost. Now, within the last decade, a large corpus of Gandharan manuscripts dating from as early as the 1st century A.D. has come to light and is being studied and published by scholars at the University of Washinton. These scrolls, written on birch-bark in the Ghandaran language and the Kharosthi script, are the oldest surviving Buddhist literature , which has hitherto been known to us only from later and modern Buddhist canons. They also institute a missing link between original Indian Buddhism and the Buddhism of East Asia, which was exported primarily from Ghandara along the Silk Roads through Central Asia and thence to China".
- Lecture: " Rediscovering the lost Buddhist literature of Ghandara" by Prof. Richard Salomon, University of Washinton, Seattle at Stanford University (2005)
Arrival of Islam
Buddhism remained prominent in the region until the Muslim Arabs and Turks conquered the area before the 2nd millennium CE. Over the centuries local Pakhtun and Dardic tribes were converted to Islam, while retaining some local traditions such as Pashtunwali or the Pakhtun code of honor. The NWFP became part of larger Islamic empires including the Ghaznavid Empire and the empire of Muhammad of Ghor and was nominally controlled by the Delhi Sultanate and Ilkhantate Empire of the Mongols. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia including NWFP.
The NWFP was an important borderland that was often contested by the Mughals and Safavids of Persia. During the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the NWFP required formidable military forces to control and the emergence of Pakhtun nationalism through the voice of local warrior poet Khushal Khan Khattak united some of the tribes against the various empires around the region. The area, as a predominantly Pakhtun region, merged following a loya jirga with the Durrani Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747 and remained mainly under Afghan control until the coming of the British.
British Era
A series of conflicts known as the Anglo-Afghan wars during the imperialist Great Game between Britain and Russia led to the eventual dismemberment of Afghanistan. The annexation of the region led to the demarcation of the Durand Line and administration as part of British South Asia. The Durand line is a term for the poorly marked 2,450 kilometer (1,519 mile) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. After being defeated in two wars against Afghans, the British succeeded in 1893 in imposing the Durand line, dividing Afghanistan and what was then British South Asia. Named for Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British colonial government, it was agreed upon by representatives of both governments, while the Afghan side greatly resented the border and viewed as a temporary development as opposed to a permanent settlement as the British viewed it as being. One of the two representatives of the Afghan government was the revered Ahmadi Sahibzada Abdul Latif of Khost. The border was drawn intentionally to cut through the Pakhtun tribes.
After Independance
During the early 20th century the so-called Red Shirts led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan agitated through non-violence for an rights Pakhtun areas. Following independence, the NWFP voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in 1947. However, Afghanistan's loya jirga of 1949 declared the Durand Line invalid. During the 1950s, Afghanistan supported a secessionist movement in the NWFP known as the Pakhtunistan movement. The issue kept Pakistan and Afghanistan at odds for decades until the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Following the invasion over 5 million Afghan refugees poured into Pakistan, most residing in the NWFP. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the NWFP served as a major base for supplying the Mujahideen who fought the Soviets during the 1980s.
The NWFP remained heavily influenced by events in Afghanistan and the civil war led to the rise of the Taliban, which had emerged in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan as a formidable political force that nearly took-over all of Afghanistan. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NWFP became a frontline region again as part of the US-led 'war on terror'.
Districts
- For List of Districts : Category:Districts of North-West Frontier Province
Image:NWFP districts.jpg There are 24 districts in NWFP.
Important Cities
Image:Malam Jabba P1010215.jpg
- For List of Cities: Category:Cities and towns in NWFP
Economy
NWFP is on the way to economic recovery, largely due to stable political and law-and-order conditions. Agriculture remains important and the main cash crops include wheat, maize, rice, sugar beets, as well as various fruits are grown in the province. Some manufacturing and high tech investments in Peshawar has helped improve job prospects for many locals, while trade in the province involves nearly every product known to man as the bazaars in the province are renowned throughout Pakistan. Unemployment has been reduced due to establishment of industrial zones.
Numerous workshops throughout the province support the manufacture of small arms and weapons of various types.
Trade with Afghanistan remains important as well, including illegal drug trafficking that largely moves through the province on its way to markets in the West.
Education
The trend towards higher education is rapidly increasing in the province and the NWFP is home to Pakistan's foremost engineering university (GIK Institute) which is located in Topi, a town in the lower part of the province. The University of Peshawar is also a notable institution of higher learning. The Frontier Post is perhaps the province's best known newspaper and addresses many of the various issues facing the local population.
Major Universities & Colleges
- See Also : Category:Universities and colleges in NWFP
- College of Aeronautical Engineering
- College of Flying Training
- Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
- Gomal University
- Islamia College
- Kohat University of Science & Technology
- Military College of Engineering
- NWFP Agricultural University
- NWFP University of Engineering and Technology
- National Institute of Transportation
- Pakistan Air Force Academy
- Pakistan Military Academy
- University of Hazara
- University of Malakand
- University of Peshawar
Major Attractions
Khyber Pass
Chitral
Swat
Kaghan
Folk Music
Pashto folk music popular in NWFP and has a rich tradition going back hundreds of years. The main instruments are theRubab, mangey and harmonium.
Khowar folk music is popular in Chitral and northern Swat. The tunes of Khowar music are very different to those of Pashto and the main instrument is the hitrali Sitar.
A form of band music composed of clarinets(surnai)and drums is popular in Chitral. It is played at polo matches and dances. The same form of band music is also played in the neighbouring Northern Areas.
Social Issues
The NWFP continues to have an image problem. Even within Pakistan it is regarded as a "radical state" and a "backwater" due to the rise of Islamic parties in the province and purported support for the remnants of the Taliban who are believed by some to be hiding in the province. Others claim that the plagues of sectarianism, terrorism and insurrection have not been a problem in the North-West Frontier and the local economy has met with significant gains in spite of hosting millions of Afghan refugees, many of whom have been integrated into the local society.
The NWFP remains closely linked to Afghanistan and is a natural bridge for Pakistan's hopes to conduct trade with Central Asia, including the possibility of oil and natural gas pipelines.
Pashtuns within the NWFP have sought to rename the province Pakhtunkhwa, which translates to "Land of the Pakhtuns" in Pashto. This has been opposed by the people of the mountainous northern regions of NWFP, many of whom are non-Pashtuns.
Personalities
- Pre-Independence (pre-1947)
- Post-Independence (post-1947)
See also
- Pashtuns
- Peshawar
- Federally Administered Tribal Areas
- Durrani Empire
- Pashtunistan
- Pakistan
- Afghanistan
- Iranian people
External links
- Official
- Travel
- Maps
- Photographs
- Media
- General Information
| Provincial and Territorial Capitals in Pakistan | Image:Flag of Pakistan.svg |
|---|---|
| Karachi—(Sindh) | Lahore—(Punjab) | Peshawar—(North-West Frontier Province) | Quetta—(Balochistan) | |
| Northern Areas | FATA | Muzaffarabad—(Azad Kashmir) | |
| Islamabad—(Federal Capital) | |
