People of Afghanistan

The people of Afghanistan are dignified, fiercely independent, but very hospitable and courteous to strangers in their splendid time-honoured Muslim tradition. Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country, with people who also live in neighbouring countries as well.

The Pathan (Pashtun) people are traditionally the dominant ethnic and linguistic community and are concentrated in the east and the south although now many are settled in other areas as well. Pashtuns also dominate the neighbouring tribal areas in Pakistan. Tajik people who speak Dari- (a Persian dialect) live mostly in the eastern valleys north and south of the Hindu Kush mountains and in Tajikistan to the north.Turkic peoples, mostly Uzbek and Turkmen, live in the northern plains as farmers and herders and in the republics of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as well. The Hazara, a Mongoloid people who mostly speak Persian, live in the central mountains and there are many smaller communities, like the Nuristanis of the high mountains of the north east and the Baluch who live in the southern desert and the neighbouring Baluchistan region in Pakistan.

Here then are a few faces of Afghanistan.

	Elder of Islam Qala	Kukchi nomad girl	Boy of Kabul	Boy of Herat
	Women in "burqa"	Old man of Herat	Feeding the horse	Boy of Herat
	School, Mazar-e-Sharif	Pathan men	Processing grain	Sikh boys, Kabul

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