Bagram Airfield
military base in Parwan Province, Afghanistan

Bagram Airfield (BAF), also known as Bagram Air Base (IATA: OAI, ICAO: OAIX), is located 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It was owned and operated by the country's Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient town of Bagram at an elevation of 1,492 metres (4,895 ft) above sea level, the air field has two concrete runways. The main one measures 3,602 by 46 metres (11,819 ft × 151 ft), capable of handling large military aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy. The second runway measures 2,953 by 26 metres (9,687 ft × 85 ft). The air field also has at least three large hangars, a control tower, numerous support buildings, and various housing areas. There are also more than 13 hectares (32 acres) of ramp space and five aircraft dispersal areas, with over 110 revetments.
Bagram Airfield was built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Bagram Air Field was formerly the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, staffed by the United States Army Garrison (USAG) under the command of United States Forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A)with major tenants such as the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing of the U.S. Air Force, along with rotating units of other U.S. and coalition forces. It was expanded and modernized by the Americans.
The public source identifies “Bagram Airfield” as military base in Parwan Province, Afghanistan. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bagram, Airfield and military.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q800126. Authority coordinates are 34.946, 69.265. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bagram Airfield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.