Hazarajat

Hazarajat, also called Hazaristan, is a mostly mountainous region in the central highlands of Afghanistan and the traditional homeland of the Hazara people, who form the majority of its population. It lies among the Kuh-e Baba mountains at the western end of the Hindu Kush, and its boundaries have never been exact. It is made up chiefly of Bamyan, Daikundi, Ghazni, large parts of Ghor and Maidan Wardak provinces, with small parts of several others. Heavy snow blocks mountain passes such as the Salang and Shibar for months each year, and the highlands are the source of rivers including the Helmand, Kabul, Hari, Murghab, Balkh and Kunduz. The name joins Hazara to a Persian suffix meaning land. Until the 1880s the region was largely self-governing, and the central government in Kabul rarely managed to rule it.