Bamyan (Pashto, Dari: ), also spelled Bamiyan, Bāmīān or Bāmyān, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan with the city of Bamyan as its center, located in central parts of Afghanistan.

The terrain in Bamyan is mountainous or semi-mountainous, at the western end of the Hindu Kush mountains concurrent with the Himalayas. The province is divided into eight districts, with the town of Bamyan serving as its capital. The province has a population of about 495,557 and borders Samangan to the north, Baghlan, Parwan, and Maidan Wardak to the east, Ghazni and Daikundi to the south, and Ghor and Sar-e-Pol to the west. It is the largest province in the Central region of Afghanistan.

It was a center of commerce and Buddhism in the 4th and 5th centuries. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley civilization.

After 2000 BC, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further south to India, west to what is now Iran, and towards Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region as a whole was called Ariana.thumb|Detail of the [[Buddhas of Bamiyan#Mural paintings|frescoes inside the caves of the Bamiyan Buddha complex|left]]

The people shared similar culture with other Indo-Iranians. The ancient religion of Kafiristan survived here until the 19th century. Another religion, Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BC, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism.

By the middle of the 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered.

In 330 BC, Alexander the Great seized the area but left it to the Seleucids to rule.upright|thumb|The smaller [[Buddhas of Bamiyan|Buddha of Bamiyan. Buddhism was widespread in the region before the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.]]

Afghanistan's significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious and artistic remnants. Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during the life of the Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC), as recorded by Husang Tsang. It became the site of an early Buddhist monastery. Buddhism was by this time in "an expansionist mode, offering religious practices that spoke to the masses and an appealing style of illustrative art, backed by the subtle philosophy of the Mahayana sect". Many statues of Buddha were carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. The two most prominent of these statues were standing Buddhas, now known as the Buddhas of Bamyan, measuring 53 and 40 meters high respectively, which were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world. They were probably erected in the 4th or 5th century A.D. They were cultural landmarks for many years and are listed among UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

Medieval times

By the 7th century, when the Arabs first arrived, it was under the control of the Turk Shahis before being conquered in the name of Islam by the Saffarids in the 9th century. The Tang dynasty of China controlled large parts of the region during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Emperor Gaozong of Tang. The Tibetan Empire also extended its influence into the region. The region fell to the Ghaznavids followed by the Ghurids before the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. After the Mongol invasion, the area was ruled by Arghun Khan of Ilkhanate, later by the Timurids and Mughals.

In 1709, when the Hotaki dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and defeated the Persian Safavids, Bamyan was under the Mughal Empire influence until Ahmad Shah Durrani made it become part of the Afghan Durrani Empire, which became what is now the modern state of Afghanistan.

Modern history

20th century

In the 1980s, during the Soviet–Afghan War, the Hazara rebel leader Abdul Ali Mazari began a resistance movement against the Soviets in the region, Shura-e-Itifaq-e-Islami. In the early 1990s, there was an agreement to run Bamyan under a council of "local ethnic and political groups".

21st century

In 2000, the Taliban lost control of the district to local militias, but quickly took it back. To curb future rebellions, in early 2001 the Taliban arrested 300 civilian adult men and executed them publicly. The Supreme Leader of the Taliban at the time, Mullah Mohammad Omar, allegedly stopped more retribution acts in the area, but he did not forgive the rebellion. In March, Omar ordered the Taliban to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan, claiming they were symbols of idolatry. UNESCO called it a "crime against culture".

Later in 2001, the U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan, and local militias in Bamyan sided with them to fight against the Taliban. The Taliban fled the region in December. NATO eventually created a new government in Afghanistan. Over the next few decades, women's rights would be restored. It became the area of the country most visited by tourists, and it elected Afghanistan's first female governor of a province, Habiba Sarabi, who created the Band-e-Amir National Park. A local Hazara named Haji Hekmat Hussein, a parliamentary candidate in the U.S.' new government, was secretly a Taliban intelligence officer who participated in the 2001 massacre. He would be arrested and jailed, but was released in 2020 as a part of the Doha Agreement between the U.S. and Taliban. The U.S. made a "protective belt" around the province that stopped anyone outside, including other Afghanis, from coming into Bamyan. Control of the belt was given to local militias, which caused conflict between various ethnic groups.

By 2011, the Taliban in Bamyan started gaining strength, and there was concern over their future plans as NATO began their phased withdrawal from the country. The U.S. and NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in 2014.

In 2021, the Taliban started an offensive to retake Afghanistan. They made significant advances by July, and two districts, Saighan and Kahmard, had been taken. There was an effort by police and local militias to keep the Taliban 60 miles away from Bamyan city, which the Afghanistan government believed could be the start of a turnaround for their military in the region. In August 2021, Ashraf Ghani's government collapsed, and the Taliban took Bamyan on August 15. Initially, there was a conflict between different Taliban members in the area of whether or not policies put in place in the province to show the new Taliban government would be more liberal or moderate in its ideology. Other Taliban members resented the locals who embraced those ideals in the prior 20 years. In August 2023, they banned women from entering Band-e-Amir National Park.

Administrative divisions

250px|thumb|Map of the districts of Bamyan as of January 2004, prior to the redrawing of provincial and district boundaries later that year

{| class="wikitable sortable"

!District

!Capital

!Population (2020)

!Area in km<sup>2</sup>

!Pop. density per km<sup>2</sup>

!Ethnic composition

|-

|Bamyan || Bamyan || align=right| 94,855 || align=right| 1,798 || align=right| 53 || (76% Hazaras) (82% Shiites,) (16% Sayyids / Sadat),

(6% Tajiks, )

(1% Qizilbash) (<1% Pashtuns.)

|-

|Kahmard || Kahmard || align=right| 41,053 || align=right| 1,389 || align=right| 30 || 85% Tajiks, 14% Hazaras (8% Shiites, 6% Sunni Tatars), 1% Pashtuns. Used to belong to Baghlan Province.

|-

|Panjab || Panjab || align=right| 77,058 || align=right| 1,961 || align=right| 39 || 90% Hazaras

.

Sayyids/Sadat

|-

|Sayghan || Sayghan|| align=right| 27,103 || align=right| 1,729 || align=right| 16 || Used to be part of Kahmard District.

|-

|Shibar || Shibar || align=right| 33,348 || align=right| 1,372 || align=right| 24 || (50% Hazaras) (33% Shiites) (16% Ismailis,) (10% Sayyids / Sadat ),( 44% Tajiks.

|-

|Waras || Waras|| align=right| 123,293 || align=right| 2,975 || align=right| 41 || 99% Hazaras, 1% Sayyids.

|-

|Yakawlang || Yakawlang || align=right| 68,821 || align=right| 4,579 || align=right| 15 || >50% Hazaras (8% Shiites, 48% Sayyids/ Sadat ), <1% Tajiks.

|-

|Yakawlang 2 || || align=right| 30,026 || align=right| 2,223 || align=right| 14 || Used to be part of Yakawlang District.

|- bgcolor="#d3d3d3"

|Bamyan

|

| align=right| 495,557

| align=right| 18,029

| align=right| 27

|(83.9% Hazaras) (71.1% Shiites,) (30.8% Sayyids/Sadat)

1.1% Ismailis, 0.9% Sunni Tatars), 16.1% Farsiwan (15.9% Tajiks, 0.2% Qizilbash), 0.3% Pashtuns.

|}

Economy

thumb|Map of mines of Bamian Province

thumb|[[Band-e Amir National Park]]

Agriculture

Bamiyan has been particularly famous for its potatoes. The region is also known for a "shuttle system" of planting, wherein seed potatoes are grown in winter in Jalalabad, a warm area of eastern Afghanistan, and then transferred to Bamyan for spring re-planting.

Tourism

Prior to the Soviet invasion of 1979, the province attracted many tourists. Bamyan is the first province in Afghanistan to have set up a tourist board, Bamyan Tourism. A feature of this developing tourist industry is based on skiing. The province is said to have 'some of the best "outback skiing" in the world and in 2008 an $1.2 million project to encourage skiing was launched by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) with the help of NZAID, New Zealand government's international aid agency. The province hosts the Afghan Ski Challenge, a 7&nbsp;km downhill race over ungroomed and powdered snow, founded by Swiss journalist and skier Christoph Zurcher. Tissot, the Swiss watch manufacturer, is the principal sponsor.

Transportation

As of May 2014, the province was served by Bamyan Airport in Bamyan which had regularly scheduled direct flights to Kabul.

Demographics

Population

The province of Bamyan has an estimated population of around 496,000 people.

Ethnicity, languages and religion

The residents are Hazaras, followed by significant populations of Tajiks and Pashtuns.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; table-layout:fixed; width:100%; margin:0"

|+ Estimated ethnolinguistic and -religious composition

! style="width:7.5em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Ethnicity</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:4.6em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Hazara</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:4.6em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Tajik/<br/>Farsiwan</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:4.6em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Pashtun</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:4.6em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Sadat</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:4em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Others</small>

! rowspan="2" style="width:3em; background-color:#d8f3d8;" | <small>Sources</small>

|-

! style="width:7.5em; background-color:#ddf;" | <small>Period</small>

|}

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="text-align:center; table-layout:fixed; width:100%; margin:0"

|- style="background-color:#e6f2ff;"

! style="width:7.5em; background-color:#ddf;" | <small>2004–2021<br>(Islamic Republic)</small>

| style="width:4.6em;" | 67 – 70%

| style="width:4.6em;" | 16 – 20%

| style="width:4.6em;" | ≤15%

| style="width:4.6em;" | ≤16%

| style="width:4em;" | ∅

| style="width:3em;" |

|-style="background-color:#E6E6E6;"

| 2020 EU

|| 1st || 2nd || 3rd || – || –

|-style="background-color:#E6E6E6;"

| 2018 UN

|| 70% || 20% || 5% || – || –

|-style="background-color:#E6E6E6;"

| 2015 CP

|| majority || ∅ || ∅ || – || ∅

|-style="background-color:#FFFFFF;"

| 2015 NPS

|| 67.4% || 15.7% || 0.1% || 16% || ∅

|-style="background-color:#FFFFFF;"

| 2012 CSSF

|| 67% || 16% || 15% || – || ∅

|-style="background-color:#E6E6E6;"

| 2011 PRT

|colspan="2"| 96% || ∅ || || ∅

|-style="background-color:#FFFFFF;"

| 2011 USA

|| majority || 15% || – || – || ∅

|-style="background-color:#FFFFFF;"

| 2009 ISW

|| majority || – || – || – || –

|}

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; table-layout:fixed; margin:0"

| <small>Legend:<br>

<ul style="margin:0; padding-left:1.2em; list-style-position:inside;">

<li>∅: Ethnicity mentioned in source but not quantified</li>

<li>–: Ethnicity not mentioned specifically</li>

<li>Source abbreviations: , , </li>

</ul></small>

|}

Education

Bamyan Province is home to the region's only university, Bamiyan University in the city of Bamyan. The school was founded in the mid-1990s, and largely destroyed under the Taliban and by US airstrikes. It was later refurbished by New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Teams following the fall of the Taliban.

<gallery class="center">

File:090331-N-2903M-009.jpg|alt=090331-N-2903M-009|A valley in Bamyan province

File:Band-e Amir in Bamyan, mountain cliffs.JPG|Band-e Amir in Bamyan, mountain cliffs

File:Local in Bamyan area.JPG|Local in Bamyan area

File:Overview of area in Bamyam, from Buddha statues.JPG|Overview of area in Bamyan, from Buddha statues

File:Kallu Valley (Afghanistan) - Arsenic spring.JPG|Kallu Valley

</gallery>

See also

  • Hazarajat

Notes

References

  • Bamyan Province – Naval Postgraduate School
  • Bamyan Province by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
  • Community Portal for cultural heritage management of Bamyan
  • Afghanistan Information Management Services – Bamyan Province
  • – Official site