Uruzgan Province

Uruzgan (Dari), also spelled as Urozgan or Oruzgan, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Uruzgan is located in the center of the country. The population is 436,079, and the province is mostly a tribal society. Tarinkot serves as the capital of the province. In 2004, the new Daykundi Province was carved out of an area in the north. Uruzgan borders the provinces of Kandahar, Daykundi, Ghazni, Zabul, and Helmand. Uruzgan province is located in southern Afghanistan, bordering Zabul and Kandahar to the south, Helmand to the southwest, Daykundi to the north, and Ghazni to the east. Uruzgan covers an area of . Much of the province is mountainous or semi-mountainous terrain, while the rest of the area is made up of flat land. The Arabs were first to arrive in Uruzgan in the 7th century when they brought Islam to the region followed by the Saffarids who conquered the place in the 9th century . The region was part of ancient Arachosia, and was ruled by the Medes before it fell to the Achaemenids. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great occupied the area but left it to the Seleucids to rule. It was later attained and ruled by the Mauryas under Ashoka. By the 7th century, when the Arabs first arrived, it was under the control of the Zunbils before being conquered in the name of Islam by the Saffarids in the 9th century. It fell to the Ghaznavids followed by the Ghurids before the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. The area was ruled by Arghun Khan of Ilkhanate, later by the Timurids, Mughals and Safavids. In 1709, the Hotak dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and defeated the Safavids. Then, he took control of the entire southern Afghanistan while most of the Durrani Pashtuns were settled in the Herat area at the time. In 1747, one of Nader Shah's commanders, Ahmad Shah Durrani, became leader of the Afghans and the region of Uruzgan was one of the first to become part of his new Durrani Empire, which became what is now the modern state of Afghanistan. During the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan, Uruzgan witnessed fighting between pro-Soviet forces and the Mujahideen.