Afghanistan,AREA,HISTORY,CURRENCY,GEOGRAPHY,POPULATION AND INTERESTING FACTS
The country of Afghanistan officially known as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Has captured news headlines all over the world
But there's so much more to Afghanistan than all the negative things that make the news headlines. What's happening, guys? My name is Leroy Kenton and welcome back to another episode of the channel on youtube FTD facts and now we're about to look at
Ten surprising and interesting facts about Afghanistan, so let's take a look
I mean the country is filled with a lot of amazing things, and I want to highlight that for you guys.
CURRENCY, POPULATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL STATUS
Now the first thing to look at is the landlocked country of Afghanistan shares its borders with Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan and has a huge population of 38.2 million. The people making it the 37th most populated country in the world.
Now the people who make up Afghanistan, they're called Afghans, not Afghan Eze Which is the currency that they use and it's a common mistake that people make. The next thing is that the country of Afghanistan Is the world's 42nd largest by land area with Kabul serving as its capital and largest city.
AREA AND BOUNDARY LINE AND OLD HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The total land area is 650 TO 860 square kilometers and human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era and the country's strategic location along the Silk Road Connected it to cultures of the Middle East as well as other parts of Asia.
Afghanistan's national game is booze, Kashi, Which literally translates to go pulling and they want this to be an Olympic sport? Good luck with that because it's regarded as the wildest sports game out there. It involves placing the carcass of a goat a calf or sheep placed in the center of a circle. Which is surrounded by players of two teams who are on horseback. The objective of the game is to pick up the carcass and bring it across a goal line or into the winner's circle.
The game has been played since the 13th century and used to be played earlier by rich rival warlords. But it's now being financed by Afghan phone companies as well as private Airlines, also carpet weaving has always been an integral part of the Afghan heritage for centuries with ethnic diversity drawn from other cultures like Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. The Afghan rugs are extremely popular. Afghanistan export in 2008, 2013, and 2014 afghan rugs want international awards. Which is held every year in Hamburg, Germany.
Most Afghan Weaver's today make rugs that are about the same as those that have been woven for decades and as a testament to the meticulous nature of this art. it approximately takes six to nine months to weave one large Afghan carpet.
ESTIMATION ABOUT LITERACY RATE IN AFGHANISTAN
Many reports also state that only twenty-eight point 1 %percent of the population is above the age of fifteen is literate in Afghanistan, which means 71 points nine percent of adults in the country.THEY do not have simple reading and writing abilities and hopefully, that continues to change over the years. Because the more educated you are of course the more power to you.
CROPS IN AFGHANISTAN
It's also the land of opium. Opium is the largest and fastest-growing produce in Afghanistan. Afghanistan opium poppy production goes into more than 90% of heroin worldwide. Afghanistan has been the world's greatest illicit opium producer and in 2017 opium cultivation in Afghanistan Reach a record high. The fact that the opium poppy cultivation continues to expand in Afghanistan is not surprising. I mean the country's economy has been in a deep slump since 2013. when the United States and NATO Radically, drew down their troop presence around which much of Afghanistan's economy was built after 2002. Now the bottom line is that there is simply nothing in Afghanistan that produces more jobs than the opium poppy. Economy, and there's nothing else that would surpass it in the foreseeable future
Another interesting fact is that the world's first oil paintings were not drawn in Renaissance Europe Contrary to popular belief but in the caves of Bamiyan located in the central heartland of Afghanistan around 650 BC. in 2008 psy discovered oil paintings in 12 out of 50 caves in Bamian. Possibly made with walnut or poppy. Batman was once a thriving Buddhist center where monks lived in a series of caves carved into the cliffs by the two statues.
This was a spot where the world's two largest standing buddha statues once stood until the Taliban destroyed them in 2001. Seeing that the statues were on Islamic poacher is also a very important part of Afghan culture for thousands of years. Afghans have told your tales in the form of Verses in the western side of here at. Thursday is a poetry night every Thursday.THE people from all across the city get together to share verses from old and new poetry and they get together with Desserts and sweet tea and bond over poetry. That sounds pretty awesome. Kind of like my kind of thing I love just chill vibes poetry spoken word. You know what I mean? I might enjoy it over in Afghanistan.
The next thing I want to talk about is the kandar airfield situated in southern Afghanistan
is known to be the world's single Busiest runway airstrip it is also the location where NATO has its first full air traffic facility in a country not listed in NATO
The Final Fact About Afghanistan is that
Afghanistan became independent on August 19th of 1919 and they fought three wars with Britain after which they declared themselves independent. Whew now interestingly. They were never directly ruled by the British however, Like every other country in South Asia Their foreign affairs were heavily influenced by the United Kingdom nicknamed the graveyard of Empires. Afghanistan has had a reputation for being the unconquered ball and for undoing ambitious military ventures and Humiliating would-be conquerors. The Soviets also tried to invade Afghanistan.But they were forced out Afghans did not give in so easily.
So that was a brief look at the country of Afghanistan. Let me know all of your thoughts and comments down below in the comment section.
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Afghanistan A Nation of 37 Million People
has one of the fastest-growing populations on the planet and will soon be more populous than either Canada or Poland. It is bordered by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan. Afghanistan is located at the strategic crossroads as it connected Iranian Central and East Asian civilizations to India. It is one of the most mountainous countries in the world. However, it is also home to a vast network of Rivers and fertile valleys carved out by the massive snowmelt flowing from the Hindu Kush and other mountain ranges.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND BRIEF HISTORY
MOUNTAIN envelop the country more than 4 000 years ago. The farmers of this region began to urbanize little is known about these first ancient city-states other than that those in the north in the land that became known as bacteria were culturally connected to central Asian peoples. while those in the southeast were heavily influenced by the Indus valley civilization with some of the cities there likely being founded by colonists from the south.
However, until more archaeological work is done. Afghanistan's ancient past will remain largely mysterious even Kabul the current capital of Afghanistan is likely to have been near continuously inhabited for more than 3500 years with the exact origin and people who built it unknown. sometime during the 7th century BC the Medes a Northern Iranian people were the first to conquer and unite this land under their rule which lasted approximately a little over a century.
They were overthrown by the closely related augmented Persians who divided the empire up into satrapies or provinces by the time of the conquests of Alexander The Great. Persian people's language culture and religion were prevalent in what is now Afghanistan with sizable Buddhist and Greek minorities. So the Persians had resettled from their western provinces in the preceding centuries.
Alexander faced some of the most formidable resistance of his conquests in Bactria which is likely the primary reason. He married the Bactrian princess Roxanna with whom he had a son also named Alexander which secured the allegiance of much of the Bactria in nobility in people and access to India through the strategically important khyber pass.
Alexander also founded several Greek colonies in the region that later became important political
commercial and military centers. The Macedonian Generals Hilucas and his descendants ruled over much of the eastern portion of Alexander's Empire in the years following his death at the age of 32. Control over Bactria in the Indus River valley was tenuous at best before 300 BC. Much of this territory had been lost to the Indian Mauryan Empire of Chandragupta in the peace that followed the war between the two Empires.
Chandragupta married Seleucus's daughter
and gifted his father-in-law 500 trained war elephants which he used to great effect in his wars in the west. Not long after the Greek cities of Bactria overthrew Seleucid rule establishing a wealthy kingdom that controlled much of the land trade to and from China and India they were able to withstand a major Cellucid invasion and a nearly three-year-long siege of their capital city of bulk causing the exhausted Cellucids to sue for peace over the next two decades.
The seleucid empire was also greatly weakened by the rise of another one of their former VassalsDarsacid Parthians in the southeast. The Mauryan Empire collapsed the Greco-Bactrians were then able to effectively fill much of the power vacuum left by these two empires. but their success was halted by internal division as much of the army was in India expanding Greco-Bactrian territory.
The king was overthrown by a usurper splitting the empire into two kingdoms. which both experienced several decades of relative stability and prosperity and the flourishing of a culture that was a unique amalgamation of Greek Iranian Indian and other Central Asian cultures.After the Greeks-Bactrian suffered a series of severe military defeats by the Parthians. They were overrun by successive waves of Nomadic invaders the most powerful of these tribal confederations were the UZ and the Saka or Scythians who established control over the lower Indus valley. The UZ settled in Bactria and largely assimilated with the local people over time.