Pashtun diaspora

The Pashtun diaspora comprises all ethnic Pashtuns and their descendants who are living outside of their traditional homeland of Pashtunistan (or Pakhtunistan), a historic region that is today situated over parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the (erstwhile) Pashtunistan is home to the majority of Pashtun people, there are significant local Pashtun diaspora communities scattered across the neighbouring Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab, particularly in their respective provincial capital cities of Karachi and Lahore. Additionally, people with Pashtun ancestry are also found across India; particularly in Rohilkhand, a region in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh; and in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Outside of South Asia, significant Pashtun diaspora communities are found in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf (primarily in the United Arab Emirates), the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Iran, Australia, Canada, and Russia. The Pashtun people, who are classified as an Iranian ethnolinguistic group, are believed to have settled in the traditional Pashtunistan region around the early 1st millennium CE. According to Ethnologue, the total Pashtun population currently stands at around 50 million, but some sources give slightly lower or higher figures. Among Indic communities in the Indian subcontinent, Pashtuns are commonly referred to by the word Pathan. The ethnonym Afghan (of Persian origin) has been historically used since the 3rd century AD to refer to the Pashtuns, and is now used to describe every citizen of Afghanistan. Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising 46-65% of the total Afghan population. Approximately 2 million Afghan refugees live in the neighboring Pakistan. The majority of them are Pashtuns who were born in that country. The Pashtuns are scattered all over Afghanistan, they can be found in almost every province of the country. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan and a stronghold of the Pashtun culture.