Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Kabul
- Region
- Asia, Southern Asia
- Population
- 43,844,111 (2025)
- Area
- 647,500 km²
- Currency
- Afghan afghani (AFN)
- Languages
- Persian, Pushto, Uzbek, Turkmen
- Calling code
- +93
- Internet domain
- .af
- ISO codes
- AF, AFG, 004
- Time zone
- UTC+4:30
- United Nations
- Member state
Land and position
Afghanistan covers about 647,500 square kilometres. By area it ranks 42nd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Myanmar and a little larger than South Sudan. It shares a land border with 6 neighbours: China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. It is landlocked, which means it has no sea coast. Its centre lies at about 33° north, 65° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 43.8 million people live in Afghanistan (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 36th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.53 percent of the world's people. On average there are 68 people to each square kilometre. About 26 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 66 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Persian, Pushto, Uzbek, Turkmen.
Money and economy
The currency is the Afghan afghani (code AFN, symbol ؋). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 17.8 billion (2024), which is about US$ 417 for each person (2024).
Time
Afghanistan uses one time zone, UTC+4:30 (Asia/Kabul). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
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Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Kabul | 4,434,550 |
| Herāt | 574,300 |
| Mazār-e Sharīf | 523,300 |
| Kandahār | 523,300 |
| Jalālābād | 271,900 |
| Kunduz | 161,902 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Southern Asia
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.