Ghor Province

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Ghor غور

Capital • Coordinates	Chaghcharan • 34.5225° N 65.2517° E
Population (2002) • Density	485,000 [1] • /km²
Area	36,479 km²
Time zone	UTC+4:30
Main language(s)	Persian (Dari)

Ghor or Ghowr (Persian: غور ) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is located in central Afghanistan, towards the north-west. The capital of Ghor is Chaghcharan.

Ghor, which was part of Persia for many centuries in the past history, was one of the regions which participated in the Persian Cultural Revival after the Arab invasion of Persia. The name Ghor is a dialectal version of the Middle-Persian word gar meaning mountain. The same word is spelled as ghar in Pashto language.

Ghor was also the centre of the Ghurid dynasty in the 12th and 13th century. The remains of their capital Firuzkuh, including UNESCO World Heritage site the Minaret of Jam, are located in the province.

19th century American adventurer Josiah Harlan claimed the title Prince of Ghor for himself and his descendants in perpetuity, in exchange for military aid during local factional fighting.

On June 17, 2004, hundreds of troops of Abdul Salaam Khan, who had rejected the Afghan government's plan to disarm regional militias, attacked Chaghcharan and took over the city in an afternoon-long siege. Eighteen people were killed or wounded in the fighting and province governor Mohammed Ibrahim fled. Three days later the Afghan government announced that it would not retake Chaghcharan. However, Khan and Ibrahim began negotiations soon after, but reached no agreements. Khan's troops left Chaghcharan on June 23, a day ahead of the arrival of an Afghan National Army battalion, led by Lieutenant-General Aminullah Paktiyanai, arrived with the support of about twenty U.S. soldiers.

[edit] Districts

In his 2004 travel book, The Places in Between, Rory Stewart travels by foot from Herat to Kabul and on his way, he provides a riveting portrait of Ghor Province as well as much historical information about the region.