Baghlan stretches across the northern flank of the Hindu Kush, from high mountain passes in the south to the farmed valley of the Kunduz River in the north. The main road from Kabul to the northern plains runs through the province, and passes such as the Salang and the Khawak have long tied it both to the capital and to Central Asia. Its capital is Pul-e Khumri; the town of Baghlan lies further down the valley.
Rivers and valleys
The Kunduz River — called the Surkhab in its upper course — is the province’s lifeline. Fed mainly by melting snow, it irrigates fields and supplies villages along its length before flowing on towards Kunduz and the Amu Darya. Its tributaries open side valleys such as Andarab, whose name means “between the waters”. Large parts of the province lie above 2,000 metres, where winters are long and snowy; the lower valleys are milder.
In medieval times Andarab was a key stage on one of the two main routes over the Hindu Kush to Kabul and India, by way of the Khawak pass into the Panjshir valley. Silver from the Panjshir mines was brought there for trade, and Andarab struck coins from the ninth to the eleventh centuries.
Surkh Kotal and the Kushans
Baghlan takes its very name from the past. It comes from the Bactrian word bagolango, “image-temple”, written in an inscription at Surkh Kotal, some 15 km north-west of Pul-e Khumri. French archaeologists excavated the site between 1951 and 1963 and uncovered a dynastic fire temple of the Kushan kings, probably founded early in the reign of Kanishka, around 124 CE, with statues of at least two Kushan emperors.
Over the centuries the meaning of the old name was forgotten, and it drifted from the temple to the whole district and finally to the modern town. In the Islamic period the wider region was known as Tokharistan.
Sugar, silk and many communities
Modern Baghlan grew with new roads and industry. A motor road from Kabul to Kunduz, opened in the 1930s, turned the valley into a busy corridor. New Baghlan was founded in 1937 as the chief town of Qataghan province, and an industrial town took shape nearby around a sugar refinery built in 1938–40 by the Czechoslovak firm Škoda; a silk factory followed in 1951. Sugar beet, cotton, wheat, rice, grapes, pomegranates and pistachios are all grown in the province.
Baghlan’s people include Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras and Uzbeks, with a small Tatar community. Dari and Pashto are the main everyday languages, and Uzbek and Turkmen are spoken in some districts.