Pashtunistan

Pashtunistan پښتونستان Pashtun-inhabited regions in green (1980)

Countries Afghanistan Pakistan ____________________________ Total Population (2012)   42–50 million ____________________________ Demographics Ethnic groups Pashtuns ____________________________ • Languages Pashto Minor: Persian, Urdu, Hindko,Balochi, Ormuri, Parachi, Dardic,Nuristani _____________________________ Time  zone UTC+04:30 and UTC+05:00 ______________________________ Largest cities Peshawar Kabul Quetta Kandahar Mardan Mingora Jalalabad Ghazni Kund

Pashtūnistān (Pashto: پښتونستان‎; also called Pakhtūnistān,or Pathānistān, meaning the "land of Pashtuns")is the geographic historical region inhabited by the indigenous Pashtun people of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, wherein Pashtun culture, language, and national identity have been based.Alternative names historically used for the region include "Pashtūnkhwā" and "Afghānistān", since at least the 3rd century CE onward.Pashtunistan borders Punjab to the east, Persian and Turkic speaking regions to the west and north, Kashmir to the northeast, and Balochistan to the south.
For administrative division in 1893, Mortimer Durand drew the Durand Line to divide Pashtunistan, fixing the limits of the spheres of influence between King Abdur Rahman Khan and British India. This porous line that runs through the centre of the Pashtun region forms the modern border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.Roughly, the Pashtun homeland stretches from areas south of the Amu River in Afghanistan to west of the Indus River in Pakistan, mainly consisting of southwestern, eastern and some northern districts of Afghanistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan in Pakistan.

The two Pashtun warrior-poets Bayazid Pir Roshan and Khushal Khan Khattak assembled Pashtun armies to fight against the Mughal Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively. In those times, the eastern parts of Pashtunistan were ruled by the Mughals, while the western parts were ruled by the Persian Safavids. The Pashtun region first gained an autonomous status in 1709 when Mirwais Hotak successfully revolted against the Safavids in Loy Kandahar. The Pashtuns again achieved unity under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty, when he established the Afghan Empire in 1747. In the 19th century, however, the Afghan Empire lost large parts of its eastern territory to the Sikh and British Empires. Famous Pashtun independence activists against the rule of the British Raj include Bacha Khan, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, and Mirzali Khan (Faqir of Ipi). After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Mirzali Khan and his followers refused to recognize Pakistan, and continued their war from their base at Gurwek, Waziristan, against the new state's government
.