AFGHAN TURKISTAN, province of Afghanistan, bounded east by Badakshan, north by the Oxus river, north-west and west by Russia and the Hari Rud river, and on the south by the Hindu Kush, the Koh-i-Baba and the northern watershed of the Hari Rud basin. It is loom. long, north-east to south-west, and aver ages ii4m. in width between the Russian frontier and the Hindu Kush. The area is about 57,000sq.m.—two-ninths of Afghanistan. The population is about 750,00o, mainly cultivators in towns and villages, the chief being Mazar-i-Sharif (46,20o), the modern supplanter of Balkh. The lowland has much loess and the riverine lands of the Oxus are highly cultivated, but to the west the Turko man area is waste, and to the south are rough mountains. The people are Persian and Uzbeg with Turkoman, Hazara (Mongol) and Hindu elements. Ancient Balkh or Bactriana belonged to the Achaemenian empire. About 250 B.C. Diodotus (Theodotus), governor under the Seleucidae, made himself independent and founded the Graeco-Bactrian dynasties which succumbed to Par thian and nomad movements about 126 B.C. The succeeding Bud dhist era has left us huge sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of Haibak. Jenghiz Khan laid waste the land ; later it be longed for a century to the Delhi empire, then became Uzbeg, and in the 18th century came under Ahmad Khan and his son Timur (Durani Afghans). Next the Khanates fell apart during strife between Timur's sons, and the Uzbeg khans came under the rule of Bokhara. Under Dost Mohammed (1850-1859) the Afghans occupied the province, and boundary disputes were set tled (1873) by the Anglo-Russian agreement awarding Andkhui, Shibarghan, Saripul and Maimana to Afghanistan. The Russo Afghan commission.delimited the boundary in 1885.