Kabul
Kabul (کابل, Kābul) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, situated in a valley at 1,791 metres above sea level in the eastern part of the country, flanked by the Hindu Kush. With a population of over five million, it is one of the world's highest capital cities and has served as Afghanistan's seat of government since 1776.[1][2]
Ancient origins
Kabul is mentioned in the Rigveda as Kubha and in the Avesta, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. It was part of the Median Empire (c. 678–549 BC), then the Achaemenid Empire, listed by Darius the Great as one of his twenty-nine provinces. Alexander the Great passed through in 330 BC; the city later came under the Maurya Empire, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and the Kushans, during whose rule Buddhism flourished.[1][3]
From Mongol destruction to Mughal capital
Genghis Khan destroyed Kabul in 1220, but the city recovered and by the fourteenth century was a major trading centre under Timur. In 1504 Babur captured it from the Arghun dynasty and made it his headquarters; it became one of the principal Mughal cities and a summer capital. The Gardens of Babur, his final resting place, date from this period.[1][4]
The Durrani era and the permanent capital
In 1738 Nader Shah seized Kabul, and in 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani made it part of his Durrani Empire. In 1776 Timur Shah Durrani transferred the capital from Kandahar to Kabul, establishing the city's permanent role as the political centre of Afghanistan.[1][2]
Wars and modernisation
Kabul was occupied by British forces during both Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–42, 1878–80), suffering significant destruction — including the burning of the Char Chatta bazaar in 1842, the city's finest covered marketplace built by the Mughal governor Ali Mardan Khan in the seventeenth century. Under Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1880–1901) the city was rebuilt with a new Arg (citadel), workshops, and a combination of Central Asian, British-Indian, and European architecture. The Amir established a modern army, a nationwide tax system, and a network of provincial governorates, all centred on Kabul.[1][2]
King Amanullah (1919–1929) continued the modernisation agenda. He commissioned the Darul Aman Palace, a grand neoclassical structure built in the 1920s with German and French assistance, intended as the centrepiece of a new administrative capital and the meeting place of Afghanistan's first parliament.[1] Amanullah also pursued educational and social reforms, though they provoked conservative opposition that ultimately cost him the throne in 1929.[4]
The city opened to international diplomacy and modernised rapidly under Zahir Shah (1933–73), extending north of the Kabul River. In the 1960s and 1970s Kabul earned the nickname "Paris of Central Asia" as a stop on the Hippie Trail.[1][4]
Conflict and recovery
The Saur Revolution of 27 April 1978 marked a turning point: communist officers of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew and assassinated President Muhammad Daud Khan, establishing the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.[1] The ensuing Soviet–Afghan War (1979–89) turned Kabul into a battleground; Soviet air power and artillery devastated neighbourhoods held by mujahideen fighters, while the city's infrastructure crumbled under years of siege.[2]
After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the communist government held on until 1992, when mujahideen factions entered the city and inaugurated a devastating civil war. Kabul's population halved as residents fled the fighting between rival warlords, and much of the city's remaining infrastructure was destroyed.[1] The Taliban captured Kabul in September 1996, imposing strict rule and destroying the Hazara shrine complex at Mazar-i-Sharif in retaliation for that city's capture.[4]
US forces and the Northern Alliance ousted the Taliban in late 2001. Kabul underwent partial reconstruction under the Islamic Republic (2001–2021), but corruption, insecurity, and a flood of returnees constrained progress. On 15 August 2021 the Taliban retook Kabul with startling speed as the US withdrawal accelerated, ending the republic.[1][2]
Landmarks
Key sites include the Arg (Presidential Palace), the Gardens of Babur, Bagh-e Bala Palace, Darul Aman Palace, the Bala Hisar citadel, the National Museum, Pul-e Khishti Mosque, and Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque.[1][4]