Wardak — officially Maidan Wardak — rises west and south-west of Kabul in a mass of mountains, high pastures and narrow valleys. Its capital, Maidan Shahr, is the provincial capital closest to Kabul, about 35 km away, and most of the province’s people live along the highway that runs south from the capital toward Ghazni and Kandahar. Beyond that corridor the land is thinly settled, with villages gathered wherever there is water for irrigation.
Mountains, passes and rivers
Wardak is a very mountainous province, framed by the Koh-e Baba range in the north and the Paghman range in the east, and much of its land serves as rangeland. Well-known passes such as the Unai and the Hajigak cross its heights. Valleys like the Tangi break up the mountains, and their floors carry irrigated and rain-fed fields.
Several of Afghanistan’s important rivers gather water here. The Kabul River rises in the Sanglakh range, about 72 km west of Kabul, before flowing east past the capital. The Logar and Maidan rivers also cross the province, and a dam on the Logar at Chak stores water for the area, while the young Helmand runs through Wardak’s western highlands.
History and heritage
In the first centuries CE, Buddhist stupas stood in the Wardak valleys. In 1836 the explorer Charles Masson opened one of them and found a globular reliquary vase of copper alloy, together with dozens of Kushan coins. Around the vase runs a four-line inscription in the Kharoshthi script, dated to year 51 of the Kushan era, in the reign of King Huvishka — corresponding to 178 CE.
Known today as the Wardak Vase, it is kept in the British Museum in London, where it is on display. Because it carries an exact date and a royal name, it is an important document for scholars reconstructing the history of the Kushan kings and of Buddhism in this part of Afghanistan.
People and livelihoods
Wardak’s people are mainly Pashtuns and Hazaras, with Tajiks in the northern districts and a small Qizilbash community. Pashtuns live mostly in the south and east, and branches of the Wardak tribe are found in most districts. The western districts of Behsud are home mainly to Dari-speaking Hazaras; Behsud was long the name of a Hazara tribe and region on the eastern side of the Hazarajat before it became a territorial name.
Farming and herding remain central. Villagers grow wheat, maize, barley, potatoes, beans and vegetables, tend orchards of apples and apricots, and keep sheep, goats and cattle. Many households combine farming with trade or day labour, and stone quarrying has become a growing business. The people of Maidan Shahr are known as skilled karez workers, who travel to other parts of the country to clean and repair these underground irrigation channels.