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sharecropping

(Encyclopedia)sharecropping, an agricultural system in which a landowner allows a tenant to use their land in return for a share of the crop produced. In the United S...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

(Encyclopedia)Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly North-West Frontier Province, province and historic region (2017 provisional pop. 35,525,047), c.51,510 sq mi (133,410 sq km), NW Pakistan, bounded on the N and W by Afgha...

Hari Rud

(Encyclopedia)Hari Rud häˈrē ro͞od [key], river, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, rising in the Kuh-e Baba range, central Afghanistan, and flowing west and then north into the steppes S of the Kara Kum desert in Turkm...

Indo-Iranian

(Encyclopedia)Indo-Iranian, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by more than a billion people, chiefly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (see The Indo-Eu...

Gardez

(Encyclopedia)Gardez or Gardeyz both: gərdāzˈ [key], city (1979 pop. 9,550), capital of Paktia prov., E Afghanistan, on the Jilga River. It lies on the old trade routes between Afghanistan and the Peshawar regio...

Omar, Mohammad

(Encyclopedia)Omar, Mohammad, 1960?–2013?, Afghan religious and political leader popularly known as Mullah Omar. From a rural Pashtun family, he became a Muslim cleric. In the 1980s he joined the mujahidin fighti...

Taliban

(Encyclopedia)Taliban or Taleban tälēbänˈ, –lə– [key], Islamic fundamentalist militia of Afghanistan and later Pakistan, originally consisting mainly of Sunni Pashtun religious students from Afghanistan wh...

Mazar-i-Sharif

(Encyclopedia)Mazar-i-Sharif mäzärˈ-ē-shärēfˈ [key], city (1988 est. pop. 131,000), capital of Balkh prov., N Afghanistan, near the Uzbekistan border. It is held sacred as the alleged burial place of Ali, so...

heath, tract of open land

(Encyclopedia)heath, tract of open land characterized by a few scattered trees, abundant moss cover, and numerous low shrubs, principally of the heath family (see heath, in botany). In high-latitude regions with mi...

acre, measure of land area

(Encyclopedia)acre, measure of land area used in the English units of measurement. The acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day and therefore differed in size from one locality to another. It...