There has never been an accurate population census taken in Afghanistan, but the most common estimate is approximately 26 million. A staggering 5 million Afghans–one out of five people–are thought to be in refugee camps along the country’s borders and in neighboring nations. Pakistan has given refuge to 3 million Afghan refugees.

Afghanistan has never been inhabited by only one ethnic group. The modern country's boundaries were determined by the interests of foreign powers, and on every side they cut arbitrarily through land traditionally occupied by one ethnic group or another. Its citizens naturally identify with those who speak their language and share their culture. Their loyalty is first to their local leaders and their tribe, and their identification with an abstract Afghan nation has always been fragile. In this sense, the country’s multiethnicity has hampered its development as a nation.

However, while the different groups differ in language and culture, they also share fundamental qualities. One of the most striking qualities of the Afghan people is their toughness and resilience. Popular culture is based on tradition, steeped in religion and colored by tribal relics of war, romance and magic.

The map below shows the major ethnic groups that live in Afghanistan and indicates the extension of the groups into neighboring countries.

Afghanistan's ethnically and linguistically mixed population reflects its location astride historic trade and invasion routes leading from Central Asia into South and Southwest Asia. Pashtuns are the dominant ethnic group, accounting for about 38% of the population. Tajik (25%), Hazara (19%), Uzbek (6%), Aimaq, Turkmen, Baluch, and other small groups also are represented. Dari (Afghan Persian) and Pashto are official languages. Dari is spoken by more than one-third of the population as a first language and serves as a lingua franca for most Afghans, though the Taliban use Pashto. Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen are spoken widely in the north. Smaller groups throughout the country also speak more than 70 other languages and numerous dialects.

Afghanistan is an Islamic country. An estimated 84% of the population is Sunni, following the Hanafi school of jurisprudence; the remainder is predominantly Shi'a, mainly Hazara. Despite attempts during the years of communist rule to secularize Afghan society, Islamic practices pervade all aspects of life. In fact, Islam served as the principal basis for expressing opposition to the communists and the Soviet invasion. Likewise, Islamic religious tradition and codes, together with traditional practices, provide the principal means of controlling personal conduct and settling legal disputes. Excluding urban populations in the principal cities, most Afghans are divided into tribal and other kinship-based groups, which follow traditional customs and religious practices.

Land and People

The great mass of the country is steep-sloped with mountains, the ranges fanning out from the towering Hindu Kush (reaching a height of more than 24,000 ft/7,315 m) across the center of the country. There are, however, within the mountain ranges and on their edges, many fertile valleys and plains. In the south, and particularly in the southwest, are great stretches of desert, including the regions of Seistan and Registan. To the north, between the central mountain chains (notably the Selseleh-ye Kuh-e Baba, or Koh-i-Baba, and the Paropamisus) and the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, which marks part of the northern boundary, are the highlands of Badakhshan (with the finest lapis lazuli in the world), Afghan Turkistan, the Amu Darya plain, and the rich valley of Herat on the Hari Rud (Arius) River in the northwest corner of the country (the heart of ancient Ariana). The regions thus vary widely, although most of the land is dry.

The rivers are mostly unnavigable; the longest is the Helmand, which flows generally southwest from the Hindu Kush to the Iranian border. Its water has been used since remote times for irrigation, as have the waters of the Hari Rud and of the Amu Darya. The Kabul River, beside which the capital stands, is particularly famous because it leads to the Khyber Pass and thus to Pakistan.

Although warfare in Afghanistan during the late 20th century caused substantial population displacement, with millions of refugees fleeing into Pakistan and Iran, regional ethnicity is still generally the same. Tajiks live around Herat and in the northeast; Uzbeks live in the north, and nomadic Turkmen live along the Turkmenistan border. In the central mountains are the Hazaras, of Mongolian origin. In the eastern and south central portions Afghans (or Pashtuns), who make up the country's largest ethnic group, are dominant, and Baluchis live in the extreme south. Pashto (Afghan), Dari (Afghan Persian), and various Turkic tongues (mainly Uzbek and Turkmen) are the country's principal languages. A unifying factor is religion, almost all the inhabitants being Muslim; the large majority are Sunni, the minority (numbering over two million and mainly Hazaras), Shiitte.

Way of Life

Although the Afghan population is composed of many distinct ethnic groups, certain elements of their way of life are much the same. Characteristically, the family is the mainstay of Afghan society. Extremely close bonds exist within the family, which consists of the members of several generations. The family is headed by the oldest man, or patriarch, whose word is law for the whole family. Family honor, pride, and respect toward other members are highly prized qualities. Among both villagers and nomads the family lives together and forms a self-sufficient group. In the villages each family generally occupies either one mud-brick house or a walled compound containing mud-brick or stonewalled houses. The same pattern prevails among the nomads, except that tents replace the houses.

Settlements in Afghanistan with less than 100 houses number over 10,000 and those with 100 to 250 houses number about 1000. There are 53 urban centers that range in size from 2500 to 25,000 people. In the smaller villages there are no schools, no stores, nor any representative of the government. Each village has three sources of authority within it: the malik (village headman), the mirab (master of the water distribution), and the mullah (teacher of Islamic laws). Commonly a khan (large landowner) will control the whole village by assuming the role of both malik and mirab.

Baggy cotton trousers are a standard part of the Afghan villager's costume. The men wear long cotton shirts, which hang over their trousers, and wide sashes around their waists. They also wear a skullcap, and over that, a turban, which they take off when working in the fields. The women wear a long loose shirt or a high-bodice dress with a swirling skirt over their trousers; they drape a wide shawl about their heads. Many women wear jewelry, which is collected as a form of family wealth. When urban women leave their houses they usually wear a burka or shadier, a long tentlike veil that covers them from head to foot. Women in villages seldom wear the burka, and educated urban women discarded the custom, especially under Soviet domination where it was regarded as backward.

The diet of most Afghan villagers consists mainly of unleavened flat bread called nan, soups, a kind of yogurt called mast, vegetables, fruit, and occasionally rice and meat. Tea is the favorite drink. Village men work in the fields, joined by the women during the harvest. Older children tend the flocks and look after the smaller children. The village mosque is the center of religious life and is often used as the village guest house.

Twice a year groups of nomads may pass through villages on their routes from summer highland grazing grounds to the lowlands where they camp during the winter. The villagers traditionally permit the nomads to graze their animals over the harvested fields, which the flocks fertilize by depositing manure. The nomads buy supplies such as tea, wheat, and kerosene from the villagers; the villagers buy wool and milk products from the nomads. For food and clothing, the nomads depend on the milk products, meat, wool, and skins of their flocks; for transportation they depend on their camels. Nomadic women are free and less secluded than the village women.

A favorite sport in northern Afghanistan is a game called buzkashi, in which teams of horsemen compete to deposit the carcass of a large headless calf in a goal circle. Afghans also play polo and ghosai, a team sport similar to wrestling. The most important holiday in Afghanistan is Eid and Nowruz, or New Year's Day, which is celebrated on the first day of spring.

Traditional Costumes

Cotton and wool are the main material used in Afghanistan and these are woven and dyed and made into garments by each family or group.

Women wear the Chadri, which covers a woman from head to foot. with a latticed slit for the eyes, is made of cotton in shades of blue, brown, black. In the rural parts, women working on the land dispense with this, but cover their faces in the presence of a stranger. The women near Pakistan's border wear long, full trousers, often red in colour, with a loose, long-sleeved tunic dress, rather like the kameez, together with a draped headscarf. This is the basis of many of the women's costumes and the tunic varies in length and design. In the northern areas striped material is used, often dyed red from madder or in shades of blue and brown. Loose sleeveless, hip-length jackets are worn in full-length striped coat for warmth.

The Family

In rural areas of Afghanistan, traditional life centered on the kala, a walled compound within which lived the landowner and his extended family – parents, wife (or wives since Islam allows men up to four wives, though most male Afghans cannot afford more than one), young children, grown sons and their families, and unmarried female relatives. Wealthier families had facilities for guests in their kalas, and were equipped to shelter and entertain anyone who came by. Travelers were welcomed for the news they brought and the opportunity for fresh conversation.

Even in the cities, to a certain extent, people live in extended family units. The women of the households form a single work group and care for and discipline the children. The senior active male member, typically the grandfather, controls all expenditures, and the grandmother oversees all domestic work assignments.

Adults work very hard but also do extensive visiting or entertaining during weekends and sometimes on weekday nights as well. Women with small children may remain at home, and they are also very busy with household responsibilities and entertaining relatives and friends. Hospitality, one of the most important Afghan values, requires elaborate food preparation and a very clean house.

An Afghan's family is sacrosanct and a matter of great privacy. It is considered a breach of manners among liberal Afghans, and an act requiring revenge among conservatives, for a man to express interest of any sort in another man's female relatives. It is this cultural sense of privacy that probably was reinterpreted by the Taliban into an insistence that women be covered from head to foot when in public: A woman belongs to her family and should not be available, in any sense, to outsiders.

In the United States, family life is still the core of Afghan culture and psychological well-being, even though Afghan culture in the United States is in transition, with families ranging from traditional to cosmopolitan, based on their background and personal choice. Afghans tend to socialize almost exclusively with extended family members, and this intense family focus can cause culture conflict in the United States. Extended family obligations, especially to parents and older siblings, often supersede other responsibilities, including allegiance to one's spouse, one's job, and certainly to one's own needs.

Afghan traditional views on what constitutes proper family relationships are often at odds with American values and can lead to difficulties with the legal and social service systems. For example, polygyny is commonplace in Afghanistan, as long as the husband is able to support each wife equally. Polygamy is a crime in the United States, and U.S. INS restrictions, which recognize American mainstream cultural values, have caused the disruption of Afghan families.

In most Afghan American families, traditional role relationships have been disturbed. Although traditional Islamic cultures view the woman's proper place as in the home, many Afghan women must work outside the home to contribute to the family income. Afghan women have adapted to the United States better than have men, who have had difficulty finding a middle road between a traditional and an American lifestyle. Husbands whose wives earn salaries and have economic freedom suffer a loss of paternal leadership as the family’s sole breadwinner. The traditional husband’s power and role as head of the family is further damaged when children learn English more quickly than the parents do and become their parents’ translators and spokespersons.

While Afghan communities in the United States have made tremendous concessions to Western life, there is often tension in families as the children bring their school-learned American sensibilities into homes with traditional Afghan values. Schools teach children independence and assertiveness, which contradict cultural values of family interdependence and strict obedience to elder family members, particularly to the father's authority. Families are concerned that children will pick up immodest behavior from their non-Muslim classmates, as well as from school itself, as in sex education, being served pork, and teen drinking. However, because young Afghan Americans must walk a very narrow line, most of them learn to do so with grace and are a great credit to their families. Even young people who appear to be completely American in their speech and activities still maintain an Islamic outlook.

Children are expected to work hard in school and to come home after school to do homework; strict parents do not allow their children to engage in after-school activities. Some children and teens resort to truancy to spend time with their friends when parents do not allow them to go out with friends or visit them at their homes. Boys, however, have much more freedom than girls do. Teenage boys commonly rebel against their parents up until high school when they begin to assume young adult responsibilities.

Dating is a perpetual issue in Afghan families, and current American sexual mores (that permit, for example, unmarried couples to live together) are a source of dismay. In Afghanistan, families arrange marriages, although there is a great deal of variation in how much input the principals are allowed to have. In rural areas, the groom frequently does not see the bride until the two are engaged or even until they are married. In the United States, most young adults meet each other through school or work. Some secretly date to get to know each other before deciding to get married. They normally become engaged, however, only after the parents have approved of the match. Some wait to marry until they have finished college, but most marry by their early 20s. Divorce is rare but becoming more common with acculturation.