Bajaur Agency - Geography

Geography

Bajaur has an area of about 1290 Sq km. To its west lies the Kunar Valley from which it is separated by a series of rugged Hindukush hills and intermittent mountain passes; Nawa Pass, Ghakhi Pass and Leti Sar being the notable ones. Across these hills, the old road from Kabul to Pakistan via Nawa Pass ran before the Khyber Pass was adopted as the main route. To the south of Bajaur liess another tribal district, Mohmand Agency.
To the east, beyond the Panjkora river, are the hills of Malakand overlooking Batkhela and Dargai. To the north is an intervening watershed between Bajaur and Dir. It is over this watershed and through the valley of Dir that the G.T road from Mardan via Malakand runs to Chitral.

The major towns of Bajaur are Khar, Nawagai, Pashat and Inayat Qilla (pronounced Anat Kallay). Other notable towns of the agency include Qazafi, Jaar, Raghagan, Paatak (Sadiq Abad), Lagharai, Loi Sam (destroyed in the 2008 military operation) and Kotkay (Charmang).

Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkanri and Utman Khel Pukhtoons. The sections of Tarkanri tribe inhabiting Bajaur are Salarzai, Mamund and Ibrahimzai while those of Utman Khel tribe are Shamozai, Alizai, Mandal and Aseel. Some sections of Tarkanri and Utman Khel tribes live outside the geographical limits of Bajaur and are not mentioned here. 

The 1998 census conducted by the Govt. of Pakistan put the population of Bajaur at 0.595 million and population growth rate at 4.33 percent. By simple interpolation of the 1998 census data, the current population of Bajaur (as of 2011) must be touching the 1 million figure. 

A number of natural canals (called Rud or Khwar) flow through the fertile semi-hilly plains of Charmang, Nawagai, Mamund, Salarzai, Mandal and Utman Khel. Starting from the western slopes of the hills overlooking Kunar and terminating in the Panjkora river, these Khwars form a magnificent natural irrigation system; not witnessed in any other agency of FATA.

One prime feature of Bajaur’s topography is a mountain spur from the Kunar range, which, curving eastwards, culminates in the well-known peak of Koh-i-Mor that is visible from the Peshawar valley

Bajaur and the MYTHOLOGY: Legend has it that it was here, at the foot of the Koh-i-Mor, that Alexander the Great founded the ancient city of Nysa and the Nysaean colony, traditionally said to have been founded by Dionysus. The Koh-i-Mor has been identified as the Meros of Aryian's history—the three-peaked mountain from which the god issued.

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