Afghanistan is a landlocked country in the Middle East approximately 652,290 square kilometers; which is about the size of Texas. It is bordered to the west by Iran, to the north and northeast by the countries Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Bordering it at its easternmost edge is China, and to the south and southeast by Pakistan. The country has a generally arid or semiarid steppe, with cold winters and dry summers. The last official census in Afghanistan was taken in 1991, but as of 2001 the population was recorded as 26,813,057.
Mountains dominate this harsh terrain, running through the center of the country from the northeast to the southwest. The highest peak is in the eastern part of the mountains. It is called Nowshak, and it measures 7,485 meters high, just 1,311 meters shorter than Mount Everest. The mountain range is only called the Hindu Kush range for 600 kilometers; from then on it is broken up into numerous smaller ranges, each with its own name. There is the Koh-e Baba; Salang; Koh-e Paghman, Spin Ghar (also called the eastern Safid Koh), Suleiman, Siah Koh, Koh-e Khwaja Mohammad, and the Selseleh-e Band-e Turkestan.There are four major river systems that run through Afghanistan. They are the Amu Darya, the Oxus of antiquity, the Hilmand, and the Kabul, which is the only river of the four that leads to the sea. There are also a number of tributaries flowing from the four major systems. Most of these flow into arid portions of the country, evaporating without replenishing one of the four major systems. Others only flow seasonally.
There are several theories on how Afghanistan’s regions should be divided. The most respected divides the country into eleven different regions. The first six regions, the Wakhan Corridor-Pamir Knot, Badakhshan, Central Mountains, Eastern Mountains, Northern Mountains and foothills, and Southern mountains and foothills are all connected to the Hindu Kush range. The remaining regions are the Turkistan Plains, Heart-Farah lowlands, Sistan basin- Hilmand Valley, Western Stony Desert, and Southwestern Sandy Desert. These last five regions all compromise of plains and deserts.souce #1: soruce #2:
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