Panjshir Province

Panjshir پنجشیر
Province
A view of a valley in the Panjshir Province of Afghanistan in 2009
Map of Afghanistan with Panjshir highlighted
Coordinates (Capital): 35°24′N 70°00′E / 35.4°N 70.0°E / 35.4; 70.0Coordinates: 35°24′N 70°00′E / 35.4°N 70.0°E / 35.4; 70.0
Country	Afghanistan
Capital	Bazarak
Government
• Governor	Muhammad Arif Sarwari
Area
• Total	3,610 km2 (1,390 sq mi)
Population (2013)
• Total	45,321
• Density	13/km2 (33/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+4:30
ISO 3166 code	AF-PAN
Main languages	Dari

Panjshir (Persian: پنجشیر‎‎, literally "Five Lions", also spelled as Panjsher) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. The province is divided into seven districts and contains 512 villages. As of 2013, the population of Panjshir province is about 146,100.Bazarak serves as the provincial capital.

Panjshir became an independent province from neighboring Parwan Province in 2004. It is surrounded by Baghlan and Takhar in the north, Badakhshan and Nuristan in the east, Laghman and Kapisa in the south, and Parwan in the west.

The territory was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara between the early 16th century and the mid-18th century. It was given to Ahmad Shah Durrani by Murad Beg of Bukhara after a treaty of friendship was signed in or about 1750, and became part of the Durrani Empire. It was ruled by the Durranis followed by the Barakzai dynasty, and was untouched by the British during the 19th century Anglo-Afghan wars.

In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on a special visit in Europe, his cousin Daoud Khan took over power and began threatening to invade Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This was supported by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) but caused great anxiety in Pakistan. By 1975, the young Ahmad Shah Massoud and his followers initiated an uprising in Panjshir but were forced to flee to Peshawar in Pakistan where they received support from Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to create unrest in Afghanistan. Bhutto is said to have paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution in Kabul by making Daoud spread the Afghan Armed Forces to the countryside. Pakistani objective was to prevent Afghan invasion. The Panjshir region was well defended during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan.