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Kara-Kul

(Encyclopedia)Kara-Kul käˌrə-ko͞ol [key], mountain lake, c.140 sq mi (360 sq km), Gorno-Badakhshan, E Tajikistan, in the Pamir, near the Chinese border. It is c.12,840 ft (3,900 m) above sea level, and its grea...

Waziristan

(Encyclopedia)Waziristan wəzēˈrĭstänˌ [key], region (1981 est. pop. 545,000), 4,473 sq mi (11,585 sq km), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province), Pakistan, on the Afghanistan border. An ex...

North-West Frontier Province

(Encyclopedia)North-West Frontier Province: see Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ...

Kashi

(Encyclopedia)Kashi käshˈgär [key], city (1994 est. pop. 190,500), SW Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, on the Kaxgar (Kashgar) River (a tributary of the Tarim). It is the hub of an important commercial d...

Holland, former county, Holy Roman Empire; former province, the Netherlands

(Encyclopedia)Holland, former county of the Holy Roman Empire and, from 1579 to 1795, chief member of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Its name is popularly applied to the entire Netherlands. Holland has be...

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...

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...

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...

Pathans

(Encyclopedia)Pathans pətänzˈ [key], group of seminomadic peoples consisting of more than 60 tribes, numbering more than 26 million in Pakistan and more than 11 million in Afghanistan, where they form the domina...