Bajaur Agency - Geography

Geography

Bajour is about 45 miles (72 km) long by 20 miles (32 km) broad, and lies at a high level to the east of the Kunar Valley, from which it is separated by a continuous line of rugged frontier hills, forming a barrier easily passable at one or two points. Across this barrier, the old road from Kabul to Pakistan ran before the Khyber Pass was adopted as the main route.

To the south of Bajour is the wild mountain district of the Mohmands. To the east, beyond the Panjkora river, are the hills of Swat, dominated by another Pashtun group. To the north is an intervening watershed between Bajour and the small tehsil of Dir. It is over this watershed and through the valley of Dir, that the new road from Malakand and the Punjab runs to Chitral. The drainage of Bajour flows eastwards, starting from the eastern slopes of the dividing ridge, which overlooks the Kunar and terminating in the Panjkora river, so that the district lies on a slope tilting gradually downwards from the Kunar ridge to the Panjkora. Nawagai is the chief town of Bajour, and the Khan of Nawagai was previously under British protection for the purpose of safeguarding of the Chitral road. Jandol, one of the northern valleys of Bajour, has ceased to be of political importance since the 19th century, when a previous chief, Umra Khan, failed to appropriate himself Bajour, Dir, and a great part of the Kunar valley. It was the active hostility between the amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement), and the siege of the Chitral fort in 1895.

Major towns are Khaar and Inayat killi.

An interesting feature in the topography is a mountain spur from the Kunar range, which, curving eastwards, culminates in the well-known peak of Koh-i-Mor, which is visible from the Peshawar valley. It was here, at the foot of the mountain, that Alexander the Great founded the ancient city of Nysa and the Nysaean colony, traditionally said to have been founded by Dionysus. The Koh-i-Mor has been identified as the Meros of Arrian's history—the three-peaked mountain from which the god issued.