Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, commonly abbreviated KP or KPK and formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a province of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Pakistan by land area and the third-largest province by population. It is bordered by Balochistan to the south; Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory, and Azad Kashmir to the east; and Gilgit-Baltistan to the north and northeast. It shares an international border with Afghanistan to the west. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a varied geography of rugged mountain ranges, valleys, rolling foothills, and dense agricultural farms.

The history of the present province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is characterized by frequent invasions by various empires, largely due to its geographical proximity to the historically important Khyber Pass. It was the site of the ancient Gandhara, and was historically a stronghold of Buddhism. Islam became dominant in the region after the 11th-century conquest of the Hindu Shahi kingdom by the Ghaznavids. The predecessor of the present province was constituted in 1901, under the British Raj, when the North-West Frontier Province was created by bifurcating the northwestern districts of the erstwhile Punjab Province. In 1969, the princely states of Chitral, Swat and Dir were merged into the province, while on 24 May 2018, the FATA as well as the PATA were merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the 25th Constitutional Amendment.

Although it is colloquially known by a variety of other names, the present name was brought into effect for the North-West Frontier Province in April 2010, following the enactment of the 18th Constitutional Amendment. While it is the third-largest Pakistani province in terms of both its population and its economy, it is geographically the smallest. The province contains 16.9% of Pakistan's total population and is multiethnic, with the main ethnic groups being the Pashtuns, Hindkowans, Saraikis, and Chitralis, among others.

Etymology

The present name Khyber Pakhtunkhwa means the "Khyber side of the land of the Pashtuns", where the word Pakhtunkhwa is variously translated as the "land of Pashtuns", or "Pashtun culture and society". For over a hundred years after its creation as a province of British Raj in 1901, it was known as the North-West Frontier Province until 2010 due to its relative location being in the northwest of the nation. After the independence of Pakistan, it continued with the name but a Pashtun political party, Awami National Party based in the province demanded that the province name be changed to "Pakhtunkhwa". They presented the logic that names of other provinces, namely Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan denoted their dominant ethnicities but that was not the case for Pashtun people.

Although Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PMLN) and Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the largest political parties in the 1990s, supported the name amendment proposed by ANP, Pakistan Muslim League wanted a neutral name which did not carry an exclusively Pashtun identity in it, as it argued that there were other ethnic communities living in the province, such as the Hazarewals of the Hazara region, which opposed the proposed name. The NWFP chief minister, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, called for a referendum on the issue as a way of determining the name in 1997, but this was rejected by ANP who threatened to withdraw from national politics.

In early 2010, the process of renaming proceeded and the Pakistani Senate confirmed the name change to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the 18th amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan with unanimous voting on 15 April 2010. The name change was met with protests by other ethnic minorities, who feared increased dominance by Pashtuns. On 10 April 2010, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police acting on the direction of ANP government opened fire at unarmed protesters, killing seven and injuring dozens, and protests against the name change and for a separate province were suppressed through police violence.

The word Khyber was introduced in the name as it is the name of a major pass which connects Pakistan to Afghanistan. The province has had various names throughout history. The name Gandhāra, of an ancient civilization centered in the present-day province, was also proposed by PMLN, as a neutral name for the province. Other names used or proposed for the province include Sarhad, Afghania, Pashtunistan, Pathanistan, Sarhad, Abaseen, Khyber, or a combination of these names, such as Hazara-Pakhtunkhwa and Gandhara-Pakhtunkhwa.

History

Ancient history

The Indus Valley Civilisation (3300 BCE – 1700 BCE) was one of the earliest human civilisations to emerge in the region. Considered a cradle of civilisation, its decline was followed by migration of Indo-Iranian peoples from Central Asia, and was known for its art and sculptures, as well as Buddhist culture. The people of Gandhara spoke Gandhari language. Gandhara was conquered by Alexander the Great, who crossed the Hindu Kush in the spring of 327 BCE and defeated the tribes of Assakenoi and Gouraios.

thumb|The [[Standing Buddha from Gandhara (Tokyo)|Standing Buddha from Gandhara, a 1st century CE Gandharan Buddhist representation of the Buddha.]]

The Macedonian rule did not remain for long, as soon Chandragupta Maurya entered into conflict with Seleucus I Nicator, the successor of Alexander in Persia. A short war between the two emperors was followed by a peace treaty in 302 BCE; Seleucus ceded the lands of Aria, Arachosia, Gandhara, and Gedrosia to Chandragupta in exchange for a matrimonial alliance and 500 elephants. Ashoka the Great, the grandson of Chandragupta, spent his youth as viceroy in the region. He converted to Buddhism and made it the official religion of the empire. His rock-inscriptions are found at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra.]]

The decline of Mauryas allowed Greco-Bactrians to expand into Gandhara under Demetrius I. Menander I (reigned 155–130 BCE), the greatest of the Indo-Greeks, drove the Greco-Bactrians out of Gandhara and beyond the Hindu Kush, becoming king shortly after his victory. They were replaced by yet another group of central Asian origins, the Indo-Parthians, who built the Buddhist monastery of Takht-i-Bahi. They had Taxila in Punjab as their residence, but during their last few years of existence the capital shifted between Kabul and Peshawar.thumb|Ancient [[Buddhist monastery Takht-i-Bahi (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) constructed by the Indo-Parthians.]]

In the first century CE, the Yuezhi nomads were forced southwards by the nomadic Xiongnu. One group, known as the Kushan, took the lead, and its chief Kadphises I seized vast territories extending south to the Kabul valley. Their greatest ruler was Kanishka the Great, who had his capital at Peshawar and like Ashoka patronised Buddhism.left|thumb|225x225px|The [[Kanishka stupa once kept sacred Buddhist relics in the Kanishka casket.]]

Kushans were followed by various groups of Huna people. The reign of Alchon Hun ruler Mihirakula in the 6th century was particularly disastrous for the Buddhism, as he prosecuted Buddhists and destroyed their monasteries, resulting in the rise of Hinduism in Gandhara.

Medieval history

thumb|Horseman on a coin of Spalapati, i.e. the "War-lord" of the [[Hindu Shahis. The headgear has been interpreted as a turban.]]

The Turk Shahis ruled Gandhara until 870, when they were overthrown by the Hindu Shahis. Of Brahman or Kshatriya origins, the Hindu Shahis are suggested by some scholars to have originated from Oddiyana (Swat). Their capital was at Udabandhapura, near the modern village of Hund. At its zenith, the kingdom stretched from Kabul and Gandhara to western Punjab under Jayapala (r. 9641001). Jayapala fought a series of battles against the invading Ghaznavids; Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud finally annexed Gandhara by defeating Jayapala at the battle of Peshawar in 1001. Hindu Shahis continued their struggle for independence but were unsuccessful. They eventually exiled themselves to the Kashmir Siwalik hills. Throughout 13th and 14th centuries Peshawar and surrounding areas remained the scene of battles between Delhi sultans and numerous invading Mongol armies. In the 15th century Yousafzais migrated to Peshawar and Swat, displacing Dilazaks and Swatis.

Modern period

thumb|The white-marble façade of the [[Mohabbat Khan Mosque was founded by Mughal governor Mohabbat Khan in 1630.]]

In the early 16th-century, Peshawar, Kohat and surrounding areas were annexed by the Mughal emperor Babur. Babur married Bibi Mubarika, the daughter of Yousafzai chief. He noted the town of Peshawar as Bagram. His grandson, Akbar the Great carried out administrative reforms in the region in 1580. During the Mughal period, Hazara was a part of Punjab while much of rest of the present-day province was a part of Kabul Subah, which had provincial capitals at Peshawar and Kabul.

Akbar faced rebellion by the Yousafzai tribes, as did his great-grandson Aurangzeb, when they rose against Mughals in 1667, and engaged in pitched-battles with Mughal battalions in Peshawar and Attock. Following another massacre in the winter of 1673, Mughal armies led by emperor Aurangzeb himself regained control of the entire area in 1674, Peshawar was invaded subsequently by Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani Empire, in 1748. Ahmad Shah expanded his rule over Kashmir, Sindh and much of Punjab. His rule was briefly interrupted by an invasion of the Marathas, who ruled over Peshawar for eleven months from 1758 till early 1759 when the Durrani rule was re-established. The northern regions of Kohistan and Chitral, inhabited by Dardic peoples, remained outside the Durrani sphere of influence.

Under Timur Shah, the Mughal practice of using Kabul as a summer capital and Peshawar as a winter capital was reintroduced. The Bala Hissar Fort served as the residence of Durrani kings during their winter stay in Peshawar. In 1809, the British sent an emissary to the court of Shah Shujah Durrani in Peshawar, marking the first diplomatic meeting between the British and Durrani rulers. From 1826 to 1830 Peshawar became a centre of activities of Syed Ahmad Barelvi, who had declared jihad against the Sikh Empire. Sultan Muhammad Khan rendered valuable services for Ranjit Singh against Ahmed Barelvi, and massacred thousands of his followers in November 1830, forcing Ahmed Barelvi to relocate to Hazara. Ultimately Peshawar was directly annexed by Hari Singh Nalwa in 1834. Shah Shuja Durrani recognised Peshawar as a part of kingdom of Ranjit Singh under the tripartite treaty signed in 1838.

British colonial period

thumb|left|A colonial era lithograph of the Khyber Pass, made in 1848 by James Rattray.

The British East India Company defeated the Sikh Empire in the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, and incorporated western portions of the present-day province into British Raj, which remained part of the Province of Punjab until 1901. During the 1857 war of independence, Pashtun tribes throughout the region were generally neutral or supportive of the British, in contrast to other parts of Raj which rose up in revolt against the British. The British raised 35,000 soldiers from among Pashtun tribes, which proved instrumental in putting down the rebellion.

British had inherited Kohat, Bannu, Peshawar, Hazara, Mardan and Dera Ismail Khan from the Sikh Empire, which they declared settled districts. In the other parts of what would later become North-Western Frontier Province, the British control was tenuous. The defeat of the Kingdom of Kabul in the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1878 was followed by further expansion of British suzerainty in the tribal areas of Kurram, Waziristan and Khyber. In 1893, the boundary with Afghanistan was finalised under a treaty agreed to by the Afghan king, Abdur Rahman Khan. British awarded parts of Chitral in Asmar, as well as Nuristan, to Afghanistan under the terms of treaty. The Durand treaty also established the Wakhan Corridor, recognised as a part of Afghanistan to act as buffer zone between British and Russian Empire.

In 1895, the British campaign against Chitral resulted in Chitral being formally brought under British suzerainty. In the same year, the colonial government established the Malakand Agency to supervise Chitral as well as the tribes of Swat and Dir. Earlier, these areas had been under the jurisdiction of Gilgit Agency. The tribes of Waziristan rose in rebellion in 1897 against British; the rebellions by Waziris continued to flare up until 1947.

In 1901, North-West Frontier Province was created by separating the five districts of Punjab, namely Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Hazara and Dera Ismail Khan, by the colonial government for the administrative ease and supervision of northwestern borders.

In 1918, Swat was recognised as a princely state by British Indian government, the last of the princely states to be recognised as such. The British government transferred Indus Kohistan from the Gilgit Agency to NWFP in November 1934.

Concurrently, the British continued their large public works projects in the region, and extended the Great Indian Peninsula Railway into the region, which connected the modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region to the plains of India to the east. Other projects, such as the Attock Bridge, Islamia College University, Khyber Railway, and establishment of cantonments in Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan, and Nowshera further cemented British rule in the region.

During colonial period, North-West Frontier Province was a "scene of repeated outrages on Hindus." There were other tensions in the area as well, particularly those that involved agitations by Pashtun tribesmen against the Imperial government. For example, in 1936, a British Indian court ruled against the marriage of a Hindu girl allegedly converted to Islam in Bannu, after the girl's family filed a case of abduction and forced conversion. The ruling was based on the fact that the girl was a minor and was asked to make her decision of conversion and marriage after she reaches the age of majority, till then she was asked to live with a third party. By 1947 the majority of the ulama in the province began supporting the Muslim League's idea of Pakistan.

After 1946 elections a Congress-led ministry was established in the province under Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, a brother of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The two politicians were opposed to partition of British India. When the partition became inevitable, in June 1947, Khudai Khidmatgars led by Mirzali Khan, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and other demanded from British government the choice of a separate independent state for Pashtuns, which was refused as the principles laid for their departure required regions under their control to choose either to join India or Pakistan, with no third option.

The 1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum to allow voters to choose between joining India or Pakistan was held on 6 July 1947 and the referendum results were made public on 20 July 1947. According to the official results, there were 572,798 registered voters, out of which 289,244 (99.02%) votes were cast in favour of Pakistan, while 2,874 (0.98%) were cast in favour of India. The referendum was boycotted by Khudai Khidmatgars; their appeal for boycott had an effect, as according to an estimate, the total turnout for the referendum was 15% lower than the total turnout in the 1946 elections, although over half of all eligible voters had voted for Pakistan. He later claimed that "Pashtunistan was never a reality. The idea of Pashtunistan never helped Pashtuns and it only caused suffering for them." He further claimed that the "successive governments of Afghanistan only exploited the idea for their own political goals".

Post-independence

After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Afghanistan was the sole member of the United Nations to vote against Pakistan's accession to the UN because of Kabul's claim to the Pashtun territories on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. This led to border tensions with Pakistan. Afghanistan's governments have periodically refused to recognize Pakistan's inheritance of past treaties regarding the Pak-Afghan border. During the 1950s, Afghanistan supported the Pashtunistan movement, a secessionist movement that failed to gain substantial support amongst the tribes of the North-West Frontier Province.

After the Afghan-Soviet War, North-West Frontier Province became one of the areas of top focus for the War against Terror. The province was reported to struggle with the social and infrastructure issues even as other parts of the country continue to receive funding.

In 2010, the name of the province changed to "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa". Protests arose among the locals of the Hazara division due to this name change, as they began to demand their own province.

The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approved a bill on 28 May 2018 to merge the FATA as well as the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following the approval of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan by the national legislature; it was signed into law on 31 May by then President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain, which officially completed the administrative merger process.

Geography

thumb|Northern parts of the province feature forests and dramatic mountain scenery, as in [[Swat District.]]

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sits primarily on the Iranian plateau and comprises the junction where the slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains on the Eurasian Plate give way to the Indus-watered hills approaching South Asia. This situation has led to seismic activity in the past. The well-known Khyber Pass links the province to Afghanistan, while the Kohalla Bridge in Circle Bakote Abbottabad is a major crossing point over the Jhelum River in the east.

Geographically the province can be divided into two zones: the northern zone extending from the ranges of the Hindu Kush to the borders of the Peshawar basin and the southern zone extending from Peshawar to the Derajat basin.

The northern zone is cold and snowy in winters with heavy rainfall and pleasant summers with the exception of the Peshawar basin, which is hot in summer and cold in winter. It has moderate rainfall.

The southern zone is arid with hot summers and relatively cold winters and scanty rainfall. The Sheikh Badin Hills, a spur of clay and sandstone hills that stretch east from the Sulaiman Mountains to the Indus River, separates Dera Ismail Khan District from the Marwat plains of the Lakki Marwat. The highest peak in the range is the limestone Sheikh Badin Mountain, which is protected by the Sheikh Badin National Park. Near the Indus River, the terminus of the Sheikh Badin Hills is a spur of limestone hills known as the Kafir Kot hills, where the ancient Hindu complex of Kafir Kot is located.

The major rivers that criss-cross the province are Kabul, Swat, Chitral, Kunar, Siran, Panjkora, Bara, Kurram, Dor, Haroo, Gomal, and Zhob.

Its snow-capped peaks and lush green valleys of unusual beauty have much potential for tourism.

Climate

The climate of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa varies immensely for a region of its size, encompassing most of the many climate types found in Pakistan. The province stretching southwards from the Baroghil Pass in the Hindu Kush covers almost six degrees of latitude; it is mainly a mountainous region. Dera Ismail Khan is one of the hottest places in South Asia while in the mountains to the north the weather is mild in the summer and intensely cold in the winter. The air is generally very dry; consequently, the daily and annual range of temperature is quite large.

Rainfall also varies widely. Although large parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are typically dry, the province also contains the wettest parts of Pakistan in its eastern fringe especially in monsoon season from mid-June to mid-September.

thumb|right|[[Ghabral, Swat Valley]]

Upper and Lower Chitral Districts

Upper Chitral District and Lower Chitral District, due to their location, are completely sheltered from the monsoon that controls the weather in eastern Pakistan, owing to its relatively westerly location and the shielding effect of the Nanga Parbat massif. In many ways, they have more in common regarding climate with Central Asia than South Asia. The winters are generally cold even in the valleys, and heavy snow during the winter blocks passes and isolates the region. In the valleys, however, summers can be hotter than on the windward side of the mountains due to lower cloud cover: Chitral can reach frequently during this period. However, the humidity is extremely low during these hot spells and, as a result, the summer climate is less torrid than in the rest of the Indian subcontinent.

Most precipitation falls as thunderstorms or snow during winter and spring, so that the climate at the lowest elevations is classed as Mediterranean (Csa), continental Mediterranean (Dsa) or semi-arid (BSk). Summers are extremely dry in the north of Chitral district and receive only a little rain in the south around Drosh.

At elevations above , as much as a third of the snow which feeds the large Karakoram and Hindukush glaciers comes from the monsoon since these elevations are too high to be shielded from its moisture.

On the southern flanks of Nanga Parbat and in Upper and Lower Dir Districts, rainfall is much heavier than further north because moist winds from the Arabian Sea are able to penetrate the region. When they collide with the mountain slopes, winter depressions provide heavy precipitation. The monsoon, although short, is generally powerful. As a result, the southern slopes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are the wettest part of Pakistan. Annual rainfall ranges from around in the most sheltered areas to as much as in parts of Abbottabad and Mansehra Districts.

This region's climate is classed at lower elevations as humid subtropical (Cfa in the west; Cwa in the east); whilst at higher elevations with a southerly aspect, it becomes classed as humid continental (Dfb). However, accurate data for altitudes above are practically nonexistent here, in Chitral, or in the south of the province.

The seasonality of rainfall in central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shows very marked gradients from east to west. At Dir, March remains the wettest month due to frequent frontal cloud bands, whereas in Hazara more than half the rainfall comes from the monsoon. This creates a unique situation characterized by a bimodal rainfall regime, which extends into the southern part of the province described below.

Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

As one moves further away from the foothills of the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges, the climate changes from the humid subtropical climate of the foothills to the typically arid climate of Sindh, Balochistan and southern Punjab. As in central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the seasonality of precipitation shows a very sharp gradient from west to east, but the whole region very rarely receives significant monsoon rainfall. Even at high elevations, annual rainfall is less than and in some places as little as .

Temperatures in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are extremely hot: Dera Ismail Khan in the southernmost district of the province is known as one of the hottest places in the world with temperatures known to have reached . In the cooler months, nights can be cold and frosts remain frequent; snow is very rare, and daytime temperatures remain comfortably warm with abundant sunshine.

National parks

There are about 37 national parks in Pakistan, 8 out of these are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="width:98%"

!scope="col" | Name

!scope="col" class="unsortable"| Photo

!scope="col" | Location

!scope="col" |Date established

!scope="col" |Area (Hec)

!scope="col" |Key wildlife

!scope="row" | Ayubia National Park

|100px

|Abbottabad District

|3,122

|Indian leopard, Leopard cat, Yellow-throated marten, Asian palm civet, Masked palm civet, Rhesus macaque, Red giant flying squirrel, Koklass pheasant and Kalij pheasant

!scope="row" | Chitral Gol National Park

|100px

|Lower Chitral District

|7,750

|Markhor, Urial, Snow leopard, Persian leopard, Himalayan lynx, Himalayan brown bear, Chukar partridge, Snow partridge, Himalayan snowcock and Himalayan black bear

!scope="row" | Broghil Valley National Park

|100px

|Upper Chitral District

| 134,744

|Siberian ibex, Himalayan musk deer, Himalayan brown bear and Long-tailed marmot

!scope="row" | Sheikh Badin National Park

|100px

|Dera Ismail Khan District

|15,540

|Persian leopard, Indian wolf, Bengal fox, Urial, Markhor, Chukar partridge, Indian boar, Black francolin and Grey francolin

!scope="row" | Saiful Muluk National Park

|100px

|Mansehra District

|12,026

|Himalayan black bear, Yellow-throated marten, Masked palm civet, Himalayan goral, Himalayan musk deer, Siberian ibex, Himalayan monal and Cheer pheasant

!scope="row" | Lulusar-Dudipatsar National Park

|100px

|Mansehra District

|75,058

|Persian leopard, Yellow-throated marten, Himalayan black bear, Siberian ibex, Himalayan goral, Himalayan monal and Western tragopan

Demographics

The province is home to 16.9 percent of Pakistan's total population. It had a population of 40.9 million at the time of the 2023 Census of Pakistan. About 85% of the population lived in rural areas.

As per a 2025 Dawn News report, based on data compiled by research organisation Population Council, UK Aid and the United Nations Population, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had an annual growth rate of 2.38%. According to demographic projections, if the province’s current total fertility rate of 4 children per woman remains unchanged, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's population could reach approximately 78 million by 2050.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="align:left;"

! colspan="6" | Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

!Division||Population<br />2023 Census It has been estimated that up to one-third of the province's population is non-Pashtun, mainly concentrated in the northern areas. Hindkowans are the second largest ethnic group in the province, mainly settled in the Hazara region in northeast and being in majority in the districts of Abbottabad, Haripur and Mansehra, where they are known as Hazarewals. They also form a significant urban population in the cities of Peshawar and Kohat, although their historical influence has weakened in recent decades due to the rural to urban migration and the influx of Afghan refugees.

Kohistani (mainly the speakers of Maiya and Shina) and Kho people are the dominant ethnic groups in Kohistan and Chitral, respectively, while the southern district of Dera Ismail Khan has a Saraiki majority. Other notable minority ethnic groups include Torwali people in the Bahrain Valley of Swat, Gawri people in the valleys of Kalam and Kumrat, and the well-known Kalash people in the Kalasha Valleys of Chitral.

Around 1.5 million Afghan refugees also remain in the province, the majority of whom are Pashtuns. Despite having lived in the province for over two decades, they are registered as citizens of Afghanistan.

The Pashtuns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa observe a tribal code of conduct called Pashtunwali which has four high value components called nang (honour), badal (revenge), melmastiya (hospitality) and nanawata (rights to refuge). Around 1 million of the population selected "Other" category, largely referring to Khowar in the mountainous northwest Chitral, and scattered speakers of Gujari.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+ Language in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (1881–2023)

! rowspan="2" |Mother<br>Tongue

! colspan="2" |1881

! colspan="2" |2023

!Population (human biology)|

| Greater Punjabi

| 1,050,061

| 1,226,648

| 876,604

| 916,365

| 1,000,255

| 1,102,905

| 1,008,434

| 4,820,336

| 5,203,012

| Pashto

| 870,816

| 1,023,021

| 1,088,606

| 1,221,859

| 1,202,326

| 1,279,471

| 2,875,751

| 28,363,363

| 32,919,592

| Urdu

| 17,645

| 15,686

| 15,598

| 16,995

| 8,814

| 19,221

| 50,409

| 298,319

| 259,925

| English

| 4,554

| 5,204

| 4,601

| 5,720

| 9,762

| 7,852

| 125

| Persian

| 4,028

| 3,962

| 2,851

| 3,454

| 2,352

| 6,030

| 4,422

| Kashmiri

| 3,736

| 2,218

| 821

| 533

| 343

| 1,796

| 46,084

| 6,471

| Balochi

| 2,510

| 554

| 92

| 4

| 27,846

| 30,636

| Nepali

| 1,020

| 2,655

| 5,179

| 4,149

| 5,140

| Dogri

| 624

| 336

| 674

| 46

| Sindhi

| 204

| 101

| 196

| 7

| 23

| 32,134

| 10,019

| Bengali

| 202

| 106

| 217

| 900

| Balti

| 38

| 858

| Gujarati

| 16

| 282

| 97

| 11

| Marathi

| 1

| 61

| 219

| 1

| Chitrali (Khowar–Kalasha)

| 7

| 1

| 41

| 97,489

| 5,632

| Rajasthani

| 53,329

| 25,812

| 22,637

| 596

| 93

| Kohistani

| 117

| 222

| 377

| 65,647

| 996,182

| Brahui

| 70,357

| 1,570

| Shina

| 70,140

| Others

| 60

| 867

| 7,351

| 496

| 244

| 1,688

| 1,408

| 1,843,525

| 1,136,990

|- class="sortbottom"

! Total responses

! 1,955,515

! 2,281,708

! 2,050,724

! 2,196,933

! 2,251,340

! 2,425,076

! 4,109,398

! 35,501,964

! 40,641,120

|- class="sortbottom"

! Total population

! 1,955,515

! 2,281,708

! 2,125,480

! 3,819,027

! 5,076,476

! 4,684,364

! 5,899,905

! 35,501,964

! 40,856,097

|- class="sortbottom"

| colspan="25" |

</div>

Religion

The overwhelming majority of the residents of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa follows and professes Sunni Islam while there is a significant amount of Shia Muslims in areas such as Kurram, Kohat, Hangu, Orakzai, Dera Ismail Khan, Mardan, and many other districts throughout central-southern KPK. Apart from Twelver Shias there are Isma'ilis in the Chitral district. The tribe of Kalasha in southern Chitral still retain an ancient form of Polytheism mixed with Animism, a faith once dominant in the mountainous upper northeast of the district.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+ Religion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (1855–2023)

! rowspan="2" |Religious<br />group

! colspan="2" |1855

! colspan="2" |2017

! colspan="2" |2023

!Population (human biology)|

! Islam 15px

| 1,099,134