Pashtunistan

Pashtunistan, also written Pakhtunistan and sometimes called Pashtunkhwa or the Pashtun Belt, is the historical homeland of the Pashtun people, set at the crossroads of Central and South Asia on the Iranian Plateau. It stretches roughly from south of the Amu River in Afghanistan to west of the Indus River in Pakistan, covering southern and eastern Afghanistan together with most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan. The Durand Line of 1893 split the region between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India, and it is now the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pashtuns gained a first autonomous state in 1709 under Mirwais Hotak and built the Durrani Afghan Empire in 1747. In 2018 the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas were merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.