Sharbat Gula

Afghan Girl
1984 photographic portrait by journalist Steve McCurry
Native name	شربت ګله Sharbat Gula
Born	(1972-03-20) 20 March 1972 (age 44)
Nationality	Afghan
Occupation	National Geographic, BBC Pashto
Known for	A young woman with green eyes in a red-headscarf

Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait by journalist Steve McCurry which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image is of a young woman with green eyes in a red headscarf looking intensely at the camera. It has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa and has been called "the First World's Third World Mona Lisa". The image became "emblematic" of "refugee girl/woman located in some distant camp" deserving of the compassion of the Western viewer.

In early 2002 the subject of the photo was identified as Sharbat Gula (Pashto: شربت ګله‎) (pronounced [ˈʃaɾbat]) (born ca. 1972), also known as Sharbat Bibi, an Afghan woman who was living in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed.

Gula was one of the students in an informal school in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984. Gula's photograph was taken by National Geographic Society photographer Steve McCurry on Kodachrome 64color slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikon 105mm Ai-S F2.5 lens. The pre-print photo retouching was done by Graphic Art Service, based in Marietta, Georgia. McCurry did not record the name of the person he had photographed.

The picture, titled Afghan Girl, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and her eyes staring directly into the camera was named "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the magazine, and the cover itself is one of the most famous of the National Geographic.American Photo magazine says the image has an "unusual combination of grittiness and glamour". Her green eyes are the subject of frequent commentary.