🇦🇫 Afghanistan
Kabul
Kabul (کابل) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan — 4.6 million people in a high mountain valley at 1,790m altitude, surrounded by the Hindu Kush range. The city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban sites in Central Asia (settled for at least 3,500 years) and was a crossroads of the Silk Road trading routes that connected China, India, Persia, and the Mediterranean through the Khyber and Salang passes. Kabul has been the capital of successive empires: the Durrani Empire (1747–1826, founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani, the creator of the modern Afghan state), the Emirate of Afghanistan (1823–1926), and the modern Republic of Afghanistan. The city holds extraordinary cultural heritage: the Babur Gardens (Bagh-e Babur — laid out by the Mughal Emperor Babur (1483–1530) before he conquered India, the oldest surviving formal garden in Kabul and his chosen burial site), the National Museum of Afghanistan (one of the finest collections of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic art from the Silk Road period, severely looted during the civil war 1992–1996 but being rebuilt), and the old city bazaars of Murad Khane (a restored 18th-century merchant quarter). Note: since August 2021, Afghanistan is governed by the Taliban, and international tourism is not currently operating. This guide documents Kabul's cultural heritage for when the city becomes accessible again. Best months (historically): April–June and September–October.