The Demographics of Afghanistan are ethnically and linguistically mixed. This reflects its location astride historic trade and invasion routes leading from Central Asia into South Asia and Southwest Asia. Afghanistan can be considered a country of minorities as there is no group serving as a majority. Rather, Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group followed by Tajiks as the second largest group, and then Hazaras, Uzbeks tied for third, followed by the Aimak, Turkmen, Baluch, Nuristani and other small groups. Pashto and Persian (Dari) are the two official languages of the country. Persian is spoken by at least half of the population and serves as a lingua franca for most. Pashto is spoken widely in the south, east and south west. Uzbek and Turkmen are spoken in the north. Smaller groups throughout the country also speak more than 70 other languages and numerous dialects.

The term Afghan, though (historically) synonymous with Pashtun, is promoted as a national identity. It is, however, hard to combine the varying groups. Often the Pashtun are referred to as Afghans while other groups hold to their ethnic name (e.g., Tajiks are known as Tajiks, Turkmens are known as Turkmens, etc.). The citizens of Afghanistan are in many ways somewhat distinct from the notion of ethnic Afghans as a result of this understanding.

99% of Afghanistan's population adheres to Islam. An estimated 80% of the population is Sunni, following the Hanafi School of jurisprudence; 19% is predominantly Shi'a. Excluding urban populations in the principal cities, most Afghans are divided into tribal and other kinship-based groups, which follow traditional customs and religious practices.

Afghans as a whole draw their modern national identity from the founding of the Durrani Empire in the mid 18th century. From 1747 until 1823 Ahmed Shah Durrani born in Multan, Punjab in modern day Pakistan, his sons and grandsons held the monarchy in direct session. They were the first Pashtun rulers of Afghanistan, from the Sadozai line of the Abdali (known as the Durrani since Ahmad Shah's reign) group of clans. It was under the leadership of Ahmad Shah that the nation of Afghanistan began to take shape following centuries of fragmentation and exploitation. However each ethnic group has its own unique history which makes up the entire Afghan history. There are also small Hindu and Sikh minorities. Afghanistan was once home to a many-centuries-old Jewish minority, numbering approximately 5,000 in 1948. Most Jewish families fled the country after the 1979 Soviet invasion, and only one individual remains today.
There requires some realization that Afghan nationalism can be synonymous with that of Pashtun nationalism and as a result cannot be conflated into an Afghan national identity as the country is a multiethnic entity. This is further complicated by the fact that there are now more Pashtuns (ethnic Afghans) located in Pakistan than in Afghanistan itself which has resulted in the increased usage of the term Afghanistani to denote the inhabitants of the modern state of Afghanistan and its diverse population. Thus, there have been a variety of groups who have lived in what is today Afghanistan, but were not ethnic Afghans such as the aforementioned Tajiks as well as Uzbeks and Hazaras etc. who are currently divided as to what constitutes a national Afghan identity. Because Afghan history is fraught with regional cleavages any notion of an Afghan nation-state is largely absent until the 18th century and the rise of the Durrani Empire. For this reason, important figures from the past such as Avicenna and Rumi, who were of ethnic Persian (Tajik) identity, are often not identified as ethnic Afghans or even as Afghan people, at least according to academics, while they are generally included within the context of the collective history of the modern nation-state in the geographic sense.

The population of Afghanistan includes many different ethnic groups. The Pushtuns, who make up about two-fifths of the population, have traditionally been the dominant ethnic group. Their homeland lies south of the Hindu Kush, but Pashtun groups live in all parts of the country. Pashtuns are usually farmers, though a large number of them are nomads, living in tents made of black goat hair. Male Pashtuns live by ancient tribal code called Pashtun Wali, which stresses courage, personal honor, resolution, self-reliance and hospitality. The Pashtuns speak Pashto, which is an Indo-Iranian language and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.
The Tajiks (Tadzhiks), a people of Iranian origin, are the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. They live in the valleys North of Kabul and in Badakhshan. They are farmers, artisans and merchants. The Tajiks speak Dari (Afghan Persian), also an Indo-Iranian language and the other official language of Afghanistan. Dari is more widely spoken than Pashto in most of the cities. The Tajiks are closely related to the people of Tajikistan.
In the central ranges live the Hazaras. Although their ancestors may have come from Northwestern China or Mongolia, the Hazaras speak an archaic Persian. Most are farmers and sheepherders. The Hazaras have been discriminated against for a long time, in part because they are minority Shia Muslims (Shia Islam) within a dominant Sunni Muslim population.
In the East, North of the Kabul River, is an isolated wooded mountainous region known as Nuristan. The Nuristan people who live there speak a wide variety of Indo-Iranian dialects.
In the far South live the Baluchi (Balochi), whose Indo-Iranian language is also spoken in Southwestern Pakistan and Southeastern Iran.

The Pashtuns (also known as Pakhtun or Pathan), are people that today reside mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan and are also located in western Pakistan. Considerable pockets also exist throughout other parts of Afghanistan as Pashtuns have in recent times migrated, or have been forcefully displaced, to northern and western regions. Smaller groups of Pashtuns are also found in Iran. There are many conflicting theories, some contemporary, some ancient, about the origins of the Pashtun people, both among historians and the Pashtun themselves. According to the writer W.K. Frazier Tyler writing in his book Afghanistan, "The word Afghan… first appears in history in the Hudud-al-Alam, a work by an unknown Arab geographer who wrote in 982 AD." Al-Biruni referred to Afghans as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of India, which would be the Suleiman Mountains. According to other sources, these tribes are the lost Jewish tribes that never returned and were converted to Islam during the Arab Empire. Thus it is believed that the Pashtuns emerged from the area around the Suleiman Mountains, and expanded from there. The Afghan identity began to develop as Pashtun identity under the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani who united the Pashtun (Afghan) chiefdoms in the middle of 18th century. Another boost took place under the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan who with British support further centralized the government. Until the advent of the modern "Afghan" state in the 20th century, the word Afghan had been synonymous with Pashtun.

The largest and traditionally most politically powerful ethnic group, the Pashtun (or Pakhtun in northern Pakhtu dialects), is composed of many units totaling in 1995 an estimated 10.1 million, the most numerous being the Durrani and the Ghilzai. Other major tribes include the Wardak, Jaji, Tani, Jadran, Mangal, Khugiani, Safi, Mohmand and Shinwari. Like a number of other Afghan ethnic groups, the Pushtun extend beyond Afghanistan into Pakistan where they constitute a major ethnic group of about 14 million.

The Afghan Pushtun heartland roughly covers a large crescent-shaped belt following the Afghan-Pakistani border on the east, southward from Nuristan, across the south, and northward along the Iranian border almost to Herat. Enclaves of Pashtun also live scattered among other ethnic groups throughout the nation, where they have settled at various times since the end of the nineteenth century as shifts in populations, some forced, some voluntary, occurred in response to political expediency and economic opportunities.

Physically the Pushtun are basically a Mediterranean variant of the greater Caucasian race and speak several mutually intelligible dialects of Pashtu; some also speak Dari. Both Pashtu and Dari belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Pushtun are generally Hanafi Sunni Muslims, but some are Ithna Asharia Shia.

The Pushtun have provided the central leadership for Afghanistan since the eighteenth century when Ahmad Khan Abdali of Kandahar established the Durrani Empire. This one-time general in Nadir Shah's Persian army was elected to power in 1747 at a tribal jirgah, an assembly which takes decisions by consensus. The legitimacy of his rule was sanctioned at the same time by the ulama (religious scholars). Ahmad Khan assumed the title of Durr-i-Durran (Pearl of Pearls) and was henceforth known as Ahmad Shah Durrani and his tribe, the Pushtun Abdali tribe, as the Durrani. When his successors lost the support of the tribes after Ahmad Shah's death in 1772, control passed to the Mohammadzai lineage within the Barakzai section of the Durrani Pushtun.

Mohammadzai dominance continued from 1826 to 1978, interrupted only for a scant nine months in 1929. Then power shifted to the second largest Pushtun tribe, the Ghilzai, who dominated the leadership of the secular Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) after 1978, although most were essentially detribalized because of their close association with urban life. This regime was in turn replaced in 1992 by the Islamic State of Afghanistan, established by the mujahidin whose leaders were mostly from the Ghilzai, and a variety of eastern Pushtun tribes, although the President from 1992-1996 was a Tajik. This state has been challenged since the October 1994 takeover of Kandahar by the Pushtun Taliban. The Taliban heartland remains in the south and while the original leadership bid for unity by playing down tribal identities, divisions began to surface after Kabul was taken in September 1996.

Pushtun culture rests on Pushtunwali, a legal and moral code that determines social order and responsibilities. It contains sets of values pertaining to honor (namuz), solidarity (nang), hospitality, mutual support, shame and revenge which determine social order and individual responsibility. The defence of namuz, even unto death, is obligatory for every Pushtun. Elements in this code of behavior are often in opposition to the Shariah. Much of the resistance to the largely detribalized leadership of the DRA stemmed from the perception that in attempting to nationalize land and wealth, as well as regulate marriage practices, the DRA was unlawfully violating the prescriptions of Pushtunwali.

The Pushtun are basically farmers or herdsmen, or combinations of both, although several groups are renowned for specialized occupations. For instance, the monarchy and many government bureaucrats were Durrani Pushtun, the Ahmadzai Ghilzai are consulted for their legal abilities, the Andar Ghilzai specialize in constructing and repairing underground irrigation systems called karez, and the Shinwari of Paktya monopolize the lumber trade. Pushtun nomads are discussed below.

The Tajik form the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Estimates in 1995 averaged around 4.3 million. Afghan Tajik live mainly in the Panjsher Valley north of Kabul and in the northern and northeastern provinces of Parwan, Takhar, Badakhshan, and also Baghlan and Samangan. Tajik also extend into the central mountains. There is a tendency of some non-Tajik groups to classify any Dari speaker as a member of this group. Some also tend to categorize any urban resident who has become detribalized as Tajik. This is particularly true in Kabul. Tajik are also found north of Afghanistan's border in their own state of Tajikistan.

The Persian-speaking Tajiks are closely related to the Persians of Iran and are amongst the oldest inhabitants of the region. They can trace their roots back to the original Eastern Iranian peoples that settled Central Asia in ancient times, such as the Bactrians, Sogdians, Scythians and Parthians, as well as ancient Persians who fled to Central Asia during the Arab Islamic expansion. The Tajiks also comprise the majority population of Tajikistan and are found in large numbers in Uzbekistan and Iran as well as parts of western Pakistan and the Xinjiang province of western China.

Sub-groups of the Tajiks include the Farsiwan and the Qizilbash. The major difference between them is that they are generally of the Shia sect while other Tajiks are of the Sunni sect. Despite being the indigenous peoples responsible for carrying on civilized society through the centuries, since the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, Tajiks have never ruled the region that is today Afghanistan — with the exception of the Kart dynasty and the short 10-month rule of Habibullah Kalakani in 1929. In modern Afghanistan, Tajiks have been known for being bureaucrats, educators, and especially successful merchants and entrepreneurs.

Tajik are physically from the Mediterranean sub stock. They speak various Tajiki dialects of Dari, an Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. Most are Hanafi Sunni, although a sizeable number living in areas from Bamiyan to eastern Badakhshan are Ismaili Shia. Tajik are not organized by tribe and refer to themselves most often by the name of the valley or region they inhabit, such as Panjsheri, Andarabi, Samangani, and Badakhshi. Those living among non-Tajik, such as those living among the Pushtun who refer to them as dehqan, often describe themselves simply as Tajik.

Tajik are predominantly fully sedentary mountaineer farmers and herders, who often make short-range seasonal migrations to alpine grazing meadows during which whole families move up to the mountains to harvest grain and melons. The Tajik areas are famous for a wide variety of fruits and nuts which are acknowledged to be among the finest in the country.

Many Tajik migrated to the cities, especially to Kabul, which was primarily a Tajik town until Timur, the son of Ahmad Shah Durrani, moved his court to Kabul in 1776 and declared it to be the Pushtun capital. In Kabul the Tajik are still dominant and well-represented in the uppermiddle class. Many are active in business and in government service; others find employment as cooks, houseboys or gardeners in the homes of foreigners. On the off-agricultural season Tajik may join the workforce at industrial complexes near their villages. Whether seasonally or permanently based in cities, Tajik tend to maintain close links with their rural kin.

Except for the short rule of the Tajik known as Bacha Saqqao in 1928, the Tajik have not dominated politically. Since 1978, however, several Tajik military leaders have gained substantial recognition, the most renowned being Ahmad Shah Masood from the Panjsher Valley. Burhanuddin Rabbani who served as President of The Islamic State of Afghanistan from 1992-1996 is a Tajik from Badakhshan.

Afghanistan's rugged central mountainous core of approximately 50,000 square kilometers is known as the Hazarajat, Land of the Hazara. Others live in Badakhshan, and, following Kabul's campaigns against them in the late nineteenth century, some settled in western Turkestan, in Jauzjan and Badghis provinces. Estimated population in 1995 was one million.

The Hazaras are a Persianized Eurasian people who reside mainly in the Hazarajat region. The Hazara seem to have Mongolian origins with some admixture from surrounding indigenous groups. Linguistically the Hazara speak a dialect of Persian and sometimes their variant is interspersed with more Mongolian words. It is commonly believed by many Afghans that the Hazara are descendants of Genghis Khan's army, which marched into the area during the 12th century. Proponents of this view hold that many of the Mongol soldiers and their family members settled in the area and remained there after the Mongol empire dissolved in the 13th century, converting to Islam and adopting local customs. Unlike most Afghans the Hazara are Shia, which has often set them apart from their neighbors. There are sizeable Hazara communities in Pakistan particularly in Quetta as well as in Iran.

Physically the Hazara are Mongoloid, possibly of mixed Eastern Turkic and Mongol origin, although numerous contradictory speculations exist. Scholars agree that the Hazara were established here since the beginning of the thirteenth century. Hazara speak Hazaragi, a Persianized language with a large mixture of Mongol words. A majority are Imami Shia; fewer are Ismaili Shia; while others, particularly in Bamiyan and the north, are Sunni.

The leaders of Hazara lineages, known as mirs or khans, lost their powerful status in communities after Amir Abdur Rahman subdued them in 1891. The Pushtun state established a local administration, imposed harsh taxation policies and distributed lands to Pushtun, including fertile pasture lands in areas previously inaccessible to Pushtun nomads.

The Hazarajat continued to be a neglected area. Services and physical infrastructure were practically nonexistent. Farming and animal husbandry are the principal occupations; there is no industry. Because of their meager resources, the Hazara seasonally sought work and services in other areas as low grade civil servants, shopkeepers, artisans, urban factory workers, and unskilled labour. In the 1960s an estimated 30-50 percent of Hazara males migrated to the cities where they were considered to be on the lowest rung of the social scale. During the 1960s and 70s their economic and political status improved remarkably.

During the war, contending groups within the Hazarajat achieved greater unity than ever before. Hazara political parties were excluded from the mujahideen alliances, however, largely because of rabidly anti-Shia prejudices held by some leaders, such as Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf and Yunus Khalis. It is doubtful if the Hazara will accept their former inferior status in the future.

About 1.3 million Uzbek live mingled with the Tajik all across the northern plains of Afghanistan, from Faryab Province to Faizabad, capital of Badakhshan Province. There are many mixed Uzbek and Tajik villages, although each live in separate residential quarters. In 1983 a sizeable group of Uzbek were included among the group of 4,000 Turkic speakers from Afghanistan that were resettled in Turkey. Uzbek also reside north of the Afghan border in Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Turkmenistan.

The Uzbeks are the main Turkic people of Afghanistan and are found mainly in the northern regions of the country. Most likely the Uzbeks migrated with a wave of Turkic invaders and intermingled with local Iranian tribes over time to become the ethnic group they are today. By the 1500s the Uzbeks had settled throughout Central Asia and reached Afghanistan following the conquests of Muhammad Shaybani. Most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslim and are closely related to the Turkmen who also can be found in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks of Afghanistan are usually bilingual, fluent in both Persian and Uzbek. Physically, the Uzbek are generally Mongoloid.

The Uzbek are Mongoloid with considerable Mediterranean admixture. They are Sunni Muslim and speak central Turkic dialects called Uzbeki. Uzbek practice agriculture and herding, but many live in towns where they are known as astute businessmen and skillful artisans as silver and goldsmiths, leatherworkers, and rug makers.

Some Afghan Uzbek refer to themselves by old tribal names; others identify with their towns of origin in Central Asia. Uzbek social structure is strictly patriarchal, giving considerable authoritarian power to leaders called begs, arbabs or khans. Marital endogamy is of prime importance. Although interethnic marriages between Uzbek, Turkmen and Tajik do take place, antipathy to marriage with Pushtun is widespread.

Afghan Uzbek originally came from Central Asia and their rise as the dominant political force in north Afghanistan followed the demise in 1506 of the Timurid dynasty centered at Herat. They established eleven strong principalities from Maimana to Kunduz under strong leaders, sometimes independent, sometimes nominally acknowledging allegiance to either Bukhara or Kabul, but always jockeying for power among themselves.

At the end of the nineteenth century Amir Abdur Rahman consolidated these Uzbak khanates under his rule. Later, fresh immigrations took place in the 1920s and 1930s as Russian conquests and local uprisings in Central Asia continued. During this same period many Pushtun settled among the Uzbeks with the result that by the 1960s the Uzbek had become a small minority within the area they once dominated. Since 1992, the Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostom, principal leader of the coalition opposing the Taliban, has controlled the predominant centers of power in the north.

The Turkmen are the smaller Turkic group who can also be found in neighboring Turkmenistan, Iran particularly around Mashad and Pakistan. Largely Sunni Muslim, their origins are very similar to that of the Uzbeks. Unlike, the Uzbeks, however, the Turkmen are traditionally a nomadic people (though they were forced to abandon this way of life in Turkmenistan itself under Soviet rule). Physically, they are aquiline Mongoloid.

Turkmen are another Sunni Turkic-speaking group whose language has close affinities with modern Turkish. They are of aquiline Mongoloid stock. The Afghan Turkmen population in the 1990s is estimated at around 200,000. Turkmen also reside north of the Amu Darya in Turkmenistan. The original Turkmen groups came from east of the Caspian Sea into northwestern Afghanistan at various periods, particularly after the end of the nineteenth century when the Russians moved into their territory. They established settlements from Balkh Province to Herat Province, where they are now concentrated; smaller groups settled in Kunduz Province. Others came in considerable numbers as a result of the failure of the Basmachi revolts against the Bolsheviks in the 1920s.

Turkmen tribes, of which there are twelve major groups in Afghanistan, base their structure on genealogies traced through the male line. Senior members wield considerable authority. Formerly a nomadic and warlike people feared for their lightening raids on caravans, Turkmen in Afghanistan are farmer-herdsmen and important contributors to the economy. They brought karakul sheep to Afghanistan and are also renowned makers of carpets, which, with karakul pelts, are major hard currency export commodities. Turkmen jewelry is also highly prized.

The Baluch are another Iranian ethnic group that numbers around 200,000 in Afghanistan. The main Baloch areas located in Balochistan province in Pakistan and Sistan and Balochistan province of Iran. The homeland of the Sunni Baluch in southwestern Afghanistan is in the sparsely settled deserts and semi-deserts of Hilmand Province, although Baluch enclaves are also found in northwestern Faryab Province. They are most likely an offshoot of the Kurds and reached Afghanistan sometime between 1000 and 1300 BCE. Mainly pastoral and desert dwellers, the Baluch are also Sunni Muslim.

 

These semi sedentary and semi nomadic populations are famed for camel breeding. They number perhaps around 100,000, although other estimates are lower. Seventy percent of the Baluch live in Pakistan; others reside in Iran. The Baluch speak Baluchi, an Iranian branch in the Indo-European language family; most speak Dari and Pashto as well. Baluch society is tribal, highly segmented and centrally organized under powerful chieftains known as sardars.

The Nuristani are an Indo-Iranian people, representing a fourth independent branch of the Aryan peoples (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, and Dardic), who live in isolated regions of northeastern Afghanistan as well as across the border in the district of Chitral in Pakistan. They speak a variety of Nuristani languages. Better known historically as the Kafirs of what was once known as Kafiristan (land of pagans), they were forcibly converted to Islam during the rule of Amir Abdur Rahman and their country was renamed "Nuristan", meaning "Land of Light" (as in the light of Islam). A small unconquered portion of Kafiristan inhabited by the Kalash tribe who still practice their pre-Islamic religion still exists across the border in highlands of Chitral, northwestern Pakistan. Many Nuristanis believe that they are the descendants of Alexander the Great’s ancient Greeks, but there is a lack of genetic evidence for this and they are more than likely an isolated pocket of early Aryan invaders. Physically, the Nuristani are of the Mediterranean sub-stock with about one-third recessive blondism. They are largely Sunni Muslims.

The Nuristani reside throughout a 5,000 square mile area in the east bordering Pakistan that is heavily forested and so rugged that much of it is accessible only by foot trails. The Nuristani designate themselves by the local geographical names of the five major north-south valleys and 30 east-west lateral valleys leading into the major valleys where they live. They speak Indo-Iranian dialects of Nuristani and Dardic called by village and valley names; many are mutually unintelligible from valley to valley. In 1990 the province of Nuristan was created from parts of the provinces of Laghman and Kunar. The population in the 1990s is estimated at 125,000 by some; the Nuristani prefer a figure of 300,000.

The Nuristani are of the Mediterranean physical type with mixtures from Indian stocks on the fringes. Historians accompanying Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC described this group as differing culturally and religiously from other peoples in the area. They were forcibly converted to Sunni Islam in 1895 during the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman but retain many unique features in their material culture.

The Nuristani are mountaineer herders, dairymen and farmers. They hold a respected place in the social order and many have raised to high government positions, particularly in the army.

Ethnolinguistic Groups

 

Persian 50 % (usually of Dari dialect)
Pashto 35 %
Uzbek 8 %
Turkmen 3 %
Balochi 2 %
Other (Nuristani, Pashai, Brahui, Pamiri languages, Hindko, Urdu, Hindi etc) 2 %

From the survey of July 2007 the population of Afghanistan is 31,889,923
Population growth rate: 2.625% (2007 est.)
Birth rate: 46.21 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate: 19.96 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.).
Religion: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shi'a Muslim 19%, other 1%.
Nationality: noun: Afghan(s) adjective: Afghan
Age structure:
0-14 years: 44.6% (male 7,095,117/female 6,763,759)
15-64 years: 53% (male 8,436,716/female 8,008,463)
65 years and over: 2.4% (male 366,642/female 386,300) (2006 est.)

Pashtuns - 44 %
Tajik - 25 %
Uzbek - 8 %
Hazara - 10 %
Turkmen/rest - 13%