Pashtuns
Iranic ethnic group native to Afghanistan and Pakistan
Pashtuns, also known as Pakhtuns and Pathans, are an ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans, although the 1923 constitution of Afghanistan began the use of 'Afghans' as a demonym for all citizens of the Kingdom, regardless of their ethnic group, to create an Afghan national identity.
The Pashtuns speak the Pashto language, which belongs to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Iranian language family. The dialect of Wanetsi is spoken mainly among Pashtuns of the Tareen tribe in Pakistan, and Ormuri among non-Pashtun Ormur people and Wazir Pashtuns. Additionally, Dari serves as the second language of Pashtuns in Afghanistan, while those in Pakistan speak Urdu and English. In India, the majority of those of Pashtun descent have lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead speak Hindi and other regional languages, while those in Iran primarily speak Southern Pashto, and Persian as a second language.
Pashtuns form the world's largest tribal society, comprising from 60–70 million people, and between 350–400 tribes, plus more sub-tribes. There are a variety of origin theories for the peoples. In 2021, Shahid Javed Burki estimated the total Pashtun population to be between 60 and 70 million, with 15 million in Afghanistan. Others who accept the 15 million figure include British academic Tim Willasey-Wilsey as well as Abubakar Siddique, a journalist specializing in Afghan affairs.
“Pashtuns” enters the record as iranic ethnic group native to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pashtuns, Iranic and ethnic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2556103. The Library of Congress control number is sh85109234. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923 and 2021.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pashtuns” 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.