Kurram District

Kurram District (کرم ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Kohat Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.The name Kurram comes from the river Kuramá (کورمه) in Pashto which itself derives from the Sanskrit word Krumuḥ (क्रुमुः). Until 2018, it functioned as an agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. However, with the merger of the FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it attained the status of a district. Geographically, it covers the Kurram Valley region which is a valley in the northwestern of Pakistan. Most of the population is Pashtun and the main religion is Islam (Shia and Sunni) in Kurram. Major tribes living in the Kurram District are Bangash, Turi, Orakzai, Wazir, Mamozai, Muqbil, Zazai, Paracha, Mangal, Ghilzai, Para Chamkani, Hazara and Khoshi tribe (Persian speaking tribe). Up until the year 2000, when the previous administrative divisions were abolished, the Kurram District was part of the Peshawar Division in the North-West Frontier Province (Now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) of Pakistan. The name Kurram comes from the river Kurram, which flows along the valley. In the north it is surrounded by snow-caped mountains of the Safed Koh, locally known as Spīn Ghar in the Pashto language. These mountains also border Afghanistan with the district. The geographically, the Kurram District is a connecting bridge as it interfaces with three provinces of Afghanistan: Khost, Paktia and Nangarhar (Tora bora). Kurram District is located in the erstwhile FATA and its major tribes are Bangash, Turi, Orakzai, Para-Chamkani, Mangal, Alisherzai, Muqbil, Khuaidadkhel and Masozai. In the Lower Kurram District, Sadda is a scenic place where tribes such as the Bangash reside and Sadda has natural richness depended upon hills and mountain with evergreen forests and fields for growing crops like rice and wheat. The Kurram River drains the southern flanks of the Safed Koh mountain range, and enters the Indus plains north of Bannu. It flows west to east and crosses the Paktia Province Afghan-Pakistan border at about southwest of Jalalabad, and joins the Indus near Isa Khel after a course of more than .