Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, commonly abbreviated KP or KPK and formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a province of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Pakistan by land area and the third-largest province by population. It is bordered by Balochistan to the south; Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory, and Azad Kashmir to the east; and Gilgit-Baltistan to the north and northeast. It shares an international border with Afghanistan to the west. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a varied geography of rugged mountain ranges, valleys, rolling foothills, and dense agricultural farms. The history of the present province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is characterized by frequent invasions by various empires, largely due to its geographical proximity to the historically important Khyber Pass. It was the site of the ancient Gandhara, and was historically a stronghold of Buddhism. Islam became dominant in the region after the 11th-century conquest of the Hindu Shahi kingdom by the Ghaznavids. The predecessor of the present province was constituted in 1901, under the British Raj, when the North-West Frontier Province was created by bifurcating the northwestern districts of the erstwhile Punjab Province. In 1969, the princely states of Chitral, Swat and Dir were merged into the province, while on 24 May 2018, the FATA as well as the PATA were merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the 25th Constitutional Amendment. Although it is colloquially known by a variety of other names, the present name was brought into effect for the North-West Frontier Province in April 2010, following the enactment of the 18th Constitutional Amendment. While it is the third-largest Pakistani province in terms of both its population and its economy, it is geographically the smallest. The province contains 16 % of Pakistan's total population and is multiethnic, with the main ethnic groups being the Pashtuns, Hindkowans, Saraikis, and Chitralis, among others.