Afghanistan, officially Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan, republic in southwestern Asia, bounded on the north byTurkmenistan,Uzbekistan, andTajikistan; on the east byChinaand the part of the disputedterritoryofJammu and Kashm?rcontrolled byPakistan; on the south byPakistan; and on the west byIran.Afghanistanlies across ancient trade and invasion routes from Central Asia intoIndia. This position has been the greatest influence on its history because the invaders often settled there. Today the population includes many different ethnic groups. Most of the present borders of the country were drawn up in the 19th century, whenAfghanistanbecame a buffer state, or neutral zone, betweenRussiaandBritish India.K?bulis the capital and largest city.

Afghanistan was a monarchy from 1747 to 1973, when the king was overthrown by military officers and the country was proclaimed a republic. In 1979 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) invadedAfghanistan, precipitating the decade-long Afghan-Soviet War. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the country erupted in civil war. Guerrilla groups that had fought against the Soviets continued to oppose the Soviet-installed central government; it fell in 1992 and anarchy prevailed until the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement, seized control ofK?bulin 1996. By the late 1990s, most of the rest of the country had come under the control of the Taliban, which enforced a strict form of Islamic rule. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on theUnited States, the Taliban was accused of harboring international terrorists. Aided byU.S.and British troops, a coalition of opposition forces known as theNorthern Alliancedrove the Taliban from power in late 2001.