The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in South-Central Asia. It is variously described as being located within South Asia, Central Asia, and sometimes Western Asia (or the Middle East). It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. Afghanistan, meaning land of the Afghans, has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. The country is at an important geostrategic location, connecting East, South, West and Central Asia, and has been home to various peoples through the ages.

Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian Empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy.