Dir (princely state)
| Dir دير |
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| Princely state of Pakistan | |||||
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| Capital | Dir | ||||
| History | |||||
| • | Established | 19th century or earlier | |||
| • | Disestablished | 28 July 1969 | |||
| Area | 5,282 km2(2,039 sq mi) | ||||
| Today part of | Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan | ||||
| Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa | |||||
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Dir (or Dhir) was a small Muslim princely state in a subsidiary alliance with British India within the Northwest Frontier Province until August 1947 when the British left the subcontinent. For some months it was unaligned, until February 1948, when its accession to the new Dominion of Pakistan was accepted.
Dir ceased to exist as a state in 1969, when it was incorporated into Pakistan. The territory it once covered, some 5,282 km2 (2,039 sq mi), is today within the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, forming two districts called Upper Dir and Lower Dir.
Most of the state lay in the valley of the Panjkora river, which originates in the Hindu Kush mountains and joins the Swat River near Chakdara. Apart from small areas in the south-west, Dir is a rugged, mountainous zone with peaks rising to 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) in the north-east and to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) along the watersheds, with Swat to the east and Afghanistan and Chitral to the west and north.
Dir took its name from its main settlement, also called D(h)ir, location of the ruler's palace.
The territories surrounding Dir were populated by their current ethnic majority, the Pakhtuns, beginning from the end of the 14th century. The Pakhtun were divided in several clans (khels), often battling one against the other. The three great clans which conquered the zone were the Yusafzai, Tarkanrai and the SULTAN Khel. The Dir territory was populated in the 16th century by the Malizai tribe of the Yusufzai khel, who took control of the zone assimilating or chasing away the previous inhabitants (Dilzak in Bajour; Jandool ; Maiden and Swatis from areas East of Panjkora ) and within this tribe the most prominent fractions became the Painda khel - and Sultan khels.
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