Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,^[b] 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.^[6] 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.

Although it is colloquially known by a variety of other names, the name "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa" was brought into effect for the North-West Frontier Province in April 2010, following the enactment of the 18th Constitutional Amendment. On 24 May 2018, the National Assembly of Pakistan voted in favour of the 25th Constitutional Amendment, which merged the FATA as well as the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.^[7]

While it is the third-largest Pakistani province in terms of both its population and its economy, it is geographically the smallest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's share of Pakistan's GDP has historically comprised 10.5%, amounting to over US$ 30 billion.^[8] The population of the province forms 16.9% of Pakistan's total population and is multiethnic, with the main ethnic groups being the Pashtuns, Hindkowans, Saraikis, and Chitralis, among others.^[9][10]

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