Kabul
Kabul sits at an altitude of 1,791 meters above sea level, one of the highest capital cities in the world. It is wedged into a narrow valley in the Hindu Kush, with the Kabul River running through its heart. Its center holds the oldest neighborhoods, including Bala Hisar, Deh Afghanan, and Murad Khani. The city is believed to be over 3,500 years old. In the late 20th century, this place earned a strange and tender nickname. People called it the Paris of Central Asia. Foreigners flocked here, Europeans drove through on a route called the hippie trail, and the city was spared the slums visible in other Asian cities. How does a city earn a name like that, and how does it lose it? What does a place look like when it has been claimed by empire after empire, devastated by war, and rebuilt by hand? The story of this city is the story of a crossroads, and of the people who passed through, conquered, fled, and stayed.
The Achaemenid Persian Empire mentioned Kabul among the 29 countries listed on the tombstone of Darius the Great. Located roughly halfway between Istanbul in the west and Hanoi in the east, the city sat along the trade routes linking Central Asia and South Asia. As a key destination on the ancient Silk Road, it was traditionally seen as the meeting point between Tartary, Hindustan, and Persia.
The Median Empire held the Kabul valley before Cyrus the Great annexed it in 549 BC. Under Achaemenid rule, the city became a center of learning, first for Zoroastrianism, then for Buddhism and Hinduism. When Alexander the Great took the Achaemenid Empire, Kabul came under his control, and after his death it passed to his general Seleucus.
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom seized Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, and these rulers heavily patronized Buddhism. Most of the city's population followed that religion. The Kushan Empire later took the city, and Emperor Kujula Kadphises conquered it around 45 AD. Kabul would remain Kushan territory until at least the 3rd century.
The list of claimants runs long. Over the centuries, Kabul was held by the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Greco-Bactrian, Mauryan, Kushan, Samanid, Ghaznavid, Ghorid, Khwarazmian, and Timurid powers, among others. The Tibetan Empire even held it briefly, between 801 and 815. Around 230, the Sasanian Empire defeated the Kushans and installed vassals, during which the city was called Kapul in Pahlavi scripts.
Kubha is what Sanskrit speakers called the place, and the Rigveda, composed between 2000 and 1500 BC, refers to a settlement by that name. The meaning of Kabul itself is unknown. It is believed to predate the early Muslim conquests, from a time when the city lay on trade routes between India and the Hellenistic world.
Greek authors of classical antiquity called it Kophen, Kophes, or Koa. The geographer Ptolemy recorded it as Kabura. In the Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, it appears as Vaekereta. The Greeks also called it Ortospana, meaning High Place, a name that matches the Sanskrit Urddhastana.
Xuanzang, the Chinese traveler active in the 7th century, wrote the city's name as Gaofu. The 19th-century scholar Alexander Cunningham argued that this was likely the name of one of the five Yuchi or Tukhari tribes, who he believed gave their name to the city after occupying it in the 2nd century BC.
Legend offers a softer origin. A lake once existed in Kabul, and at its middle lay the so-called Island of Happiness, home to a joyous family of musicians. A king ordered a bridge built to reach it, made out of straw. In Persian, pul means bridge and kah means straw. By this telling, the two words joined to form the name Kabul. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names dismisses a rival theory, calling the suggestion that the name comes from the Arabic root qbl, meaning meeting or receiving, unlikely.
Babur captured Kabul from the north in 1504 and made it his headquarters. It became one of the principal cities of the Mughal Empire he would later build. He loved the city. He lived in it for 20 years, the people were loyal to him, and the weather suited him. His wish to be buried there was finally granted.
The inscription on Babur's tomb carries a famous Persian couplet. It reads: Agar fardus rui zameen ast, hameen ast, o hameen ast, o hameen ast. If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, and it is this, and it is this. It was from Kabul that he began his 1526 conquest of Hindustan.
Abul Fazl, the chronicler of Emperor Akbar, described Kabul as one of the two gates to Hindustan, the other being Kandahar. Under Akbar's administrative reforms, the city became the capital of the Mughal province known as Kabul Subah. For the first time in its history, Kabul served as a mint center, producing gold and silver Mughal coins up to the reign of Alamgir II.
During this era, the population was about 60,000. The Mughals hunted here and built gardens, though most of their architectural contributions did not survive. Earlier, in the 16th century, Mughal rulers had used Kabul as their summer capital, a time when it prospered and grew in significance. The empire held the city for roughly 200 years, until Nader Shah captured it in 1738 on his way to invade the Indian subcontinent.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, commander of 4,000 Abdali Afghans, asserted Pashtun rule in 1747 and expanded a new Afghan Empire. His ascension marked the beginning of Afghanistan. By then Kabul had lost its standing, its population fallen to 10,000. The capital sat elsewhere, in Kandahar.
Timur Shah Durrani, Ahmad Shah's son, transferred the capital from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776. The city saw considerable urban development under him and his successor Zaman Shah. Religious and public buildings rose, and Sufis, jurists, and literary families were drawn to settle through land grants and stipends. George Forster, an Englishman and Kabul's first European visitor, called 18th-century Kabul the best and cleanest city in Asia.
The 19th century brought the British. In 1839, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, Shah Shuja Durrani was reinstalled with British help. A local uprising in 1841 killed the British resident, and the 1842 retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad turned catastrophic. Afghan tribesmen killed 4,500 regular British troops and 14,000 civilians. When the British returned in 1842, they demolished the city's main bazaar in revenge before withdrawing to British India.
The Second Anglo-Afghan War broke out in 1879, when Kabul was under Sher Ali Khan's rule. During that war, the Bala Hissar fortress was partially destroyed by a fire and an explosion. Decades later, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan would bring European architectural styles to the city for the first time, beginning with the Bagh-e Bala Palace in a mixed Mughal and British Indian style.
Habibia, the first modern high school, was established in 1903 during the reign of King Habibullah Khan. His regime modernized Kabul with electricity, the telephone, and a postal service. In 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, King Amanullah Khan announced Afghanistan's independence in foreign affairs at the Eidgah Mosque.
Amanullah Khan was reform-minded, with a plan to build a new capital on land 6 km from Kabul. He named the area Darulaman and made the Darul Aman Palace his residence. His European visits, especially to Berlin and Paris, shaped the city's new architecture. The Darul Aman Palace became the best known example of modern Western design in Kabul. He left the city in 1929 after an uprising led by Habibullah Kalakani, who was imprisoned and executed after nine months in power.
Kabul University opened in 1932. By the 1960s, most of its instructors held degrees from Western universities. The Kabul-Darulaman Tramway, the city's only railway service, ran for six years from 1923 to 1929. A radio tower built by the Germans in 1937 connected the capital to outlying villages.
The 1950s and 1960s brought foreign money and a different skyline. In 1955, the Soviet Union forwarded $100 million in credit, financing public transport, airports, a cement factory, a five-lane highway to the Soviet border, and dams. Soviet-style microrayon housing estates went up in the 1960s, and the government built ministry buildings in brutalist style. The first Marks and Spencer store in Central Asia opened in the city, and Kabul Zoo was inaugurated in 1967. Tourists from the West, America, and Japan came to see Chicken Street and the National Museum. Lonely Planet called the city an upcoming tourist trap in 1973.
On the 28th of April 1978, President Daoud and most of his family were assassinated in Kabul's Presidential Palace, an event called the Saur Revolution. The pro-Soviet PDPA under Nur Muhammad Taraki seized power. Private businesses were nationalized in the Soviet manner, and education shifted to a Soviet model teaching Russian and Marxism-Leninism.
Adolph Dubs, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped on his way to work on the 14th of February 1979 and held in room 117 of the Serena Hotel. Afghan police, advised by Soviet officials and over American objections, launched a rescue attempt. Dubs was shot in the head from a distance of six inches and killed. Many questions about the killing remain unanswered.
On the 24th of December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded, and Kabul was heavily occupied. The city became the Soviet command center for the Soviet-Afghan War. In Pakistan, the Director-General of the ISI, Akhtar Abdur Rahman, was heard loudly saying, Kabul must burn, Kabul must burn. He advocated arming the mujahideen, an operation later merged with Operation Cyclone, funded by the United States and carried out by the CIA.
The city's population swelled from around 500,000 in 1978 to 1.5 million in 1988, mostly internal refugees seeking safety. Women made up 40 percent of the workforce. By July 1980, as many as twelve party members were being assassinated daily. After the fall of Mohammad Najibullah's government in April 1992, mujahideen factions turned on each other. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party shelled the city in a period known locally as the Kabul Wars. At least 30,000 civilians were killed, and about 80 percent of the city was destroyed by 1996. A New York Times analyst said the city was more devastated than Sarajevo. On the 27th of September 1996, the Taliban seized Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance captured Kabul in November 2001, after the Taliban abandoned the city following an American invasion. A month later, a new government began to assemble under President Hamid Karzai. Foreign embassies reopened, expatriate Afghans returned, and the population grew from about 500,000 in 2001 to over 3 million.
Rebuilding began in 2001, and damaged landmarks were restored. The Gardens of Babur reopened in 2005, the Mahmoud Khan Bridge clock tower in 2013, and the Taj Beg Palace in 2021. Gated and secured housing complexes rose for a growing middle class, including Aria City in District 10 and Golden City in District 8. A high-security Green Zone formed in the center, and in 2010 a ring of guarded checkpoints called the Ring of Steel went into operation.
Kabul was the fifth fastest-growing city in the world in 2012. It also remained a target. The deadliest attack was a truck bombing in May 2017, and the 2021 Kabul school bombing struck a girls' school in Dashte Barchi. The Taliban seized the city again on the 15th of August 2021 during their offensive.
Tova Moradi, who lived in Morad Khane for decades and harbored a rabbi in her home during the first Islamic Emirate, fled in November 2021. With her departure, there are believed to be no Jews left in Afghanistan. Today the Kabul municipality has an estimated population of 5,333,284 people, and Mawlawi Abdul Rashid serves as its mayor. The Kabul River that once divided the central bazaars now runs dry most of the year, filling only in the wetter winter and spring.
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Common questions
What is Kabul and why is it important to Afghanistan?
Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, with an estimated population of 5,333,284 people. It has long been the country's political, cultural, and economic center, and rapid urbanization has made it the country's primate city.
How old is the city of Kabul?
Kabul is believed to be over 3,500 years old. It was mentioned at the time of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the Rigveda, composed between 2000 and 1500 BC, refers to a settlement called Kubha along the Kabul River.
Why was Kabul called the Paris of Central Asia?
Kabul gained the nickname Paris of Central Asia in the late 20th century, when it became a stop on the hippie trail for many Europeans and drew Western, American, and Japanese tourists. Its centrality and cultural importance as a nexus of ethnic groups reinforced the name.
When did Kabul become the capital of Afghanistan?
Kabul became the capital of Afghanistan in 1776, during the reign of Timur Shah Durrani, who transferred the capital from Kandahar. The city had become part of the Durrani Empire in 1747 under Ahmad Shah Durrani.
Why did Babur want to be buried in Kabul?
Babur loved Kabul because he lived in it for 20 years, the people were loyal to him, and the weather suited him. The inscription on his tomb in Kabul carries a Persian couplet declaring that if there is a paradise on earth, it is this.
What happened to Kabul during the 1990s civil war?
During the 1990s, mujahideen factions fought over Kabul in a period known locally as the Kabul Wars, after Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party began shelling the city in 1992. At least 30,000 civilians were killed and about 80 percent of the city was destroyed by 1996, when the Taliban seized it.
How many times was Kabul captured by the Taliban?
Kabul was captured by the Taliban twice. The Taliban seized it on the 27th of September 1996, lost it to the Northern Alliance in November 2001 after a US-led invasion, and recaptured it on the 15th of August 2021 following the United States' withdrawal.
Where is Kabul located geographically?
Kabul sits at an altitude of 1,791 meters above sea level in a narrow valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, bounded by the Kabul River in eastern Afghanistan. It is one of the highest capital cities in the world and lies roughly halfway between Istanbul and Hanoi.