Nuristan · Eastern Afghanistan
Nuristan, the Land of Light
A remote province in the eastern Hindu Kush, with its own languages, architecture and crafts. A guide to its land, history and people, written by someone who calls it home.
35.3° N · 70.9° E
Orientation
Where is Nuristan province?
Nuristan is a province of eastern Afghanistan, high on the southern side of the Hindu Kush. Its deep valleys run down from snow peaks towards the Kunar and Laghman lowlands, and the high passes along its eastern edge cross into the Chitral region of Pakistan. The name is also written Nooristan, Nurestan or Noristan, and Nuristanen in German and Dutch.
For most of its history those mountains kept the province apart. That long isolation is the reason Nuristan still has its own languages, its own way of building, and crafts found nowhere else in the country.
KabulNuristan
- Population
- About 175,500 (2024 estimate)
- Mountains
- Hindu Kush
- Capital
- Parun
- Districts
- Ten, since 2025
- Languages
- Five, with many dialects
- Former name
- Kafiristan
- A province since
- The 1980s, enlarged 1993
- Best months
- June, September and early October
Antiquity to today
A short history
From Kafiristan to the Land of Light
The name Nuristan is little more than a century old, and the story behind it explains much of what makes the province distinct today.
Antiquity
The land called Kafiristan
For centuries the region was known as Kafiristan, the land of the unbelievers. Closed in by high passes, its valleys kept an ancient polytheistic religion and a way of life found nowhere else.
1895 to 1896
Conversion and a new name
After a winter campaign by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, the population adopted Islam, and in 1896 Kafiristan was renamed Nuristan, the land of light. Much of the older culture endured.
20th century
Apart by geography
Through decades of change in Afghanistan, the terrain kept Nuristan separate. Its languages, crafts and architecture survived where roads and outside rule rarely reached.
1980s to 1993
A province in its own right
A smaller Nuristan province was first carved out in the 1980s, then enlarged in 1993 with its capital at Pashki in the Parun valley. Before that its valleys had been governed as parts of Kunar and Laghman, and the district map was redrawn again in 2004.
2001 to today
Closed by war, opening again
The long wars that followed did not spare Nuristan, and for years the valleys were all but closed to outsiders. Since 2021 the first visitors have been returning, travelling with local guides, and the province's own news is of roads, floods and rebuilding.
Sixteen plates
From the family album
Photographs no archive holds
Snapshots from the valleys, taken by family and friends: the province as the people who live there see it.
Plate IVillage children 
Plate IIElders gather on the hillside 
Plate IIIObaid with village elders 
Plate IVA gathering outside a timber house 
Plate VPractising with the long wooden bow 
Plate VIA village jirga 
Plate VIIAn elder in the high valleys 
Plate VIIIGreen tea with Haji Yousuf, Kuraj valley, Mandol 
Plate IXDistributing clothes to children 
Plate XAbdulrahman and a friend in the Pashagar valley, Nurgaram 
Plate XIObaid and elders making dua on a veranda in Parun 
Plate XIIZabiullah visiting a school in the Yinshaw valley, Waygal 
Plate XIIIOn a rooftop above the centre of Waygal 
Plate XIVFishing with the locals, Dani Pajagal river, Du Ab 
Plate XVA tribe jirga in Mandol 
Plate XVIChildren of Kantiwa
Six pillars
A living culture
The culture of Nuristan
Language, building, dress and food that set the province apart, shaped by centuries in the mountains.
Society
Village, clan and council; rank earned by giving; the guest fed first.
Who are the Nuristanis?
Architecture
Timber and stone houses stacked up the slope, each roof the yard of the house above.
How the villages are built
Clothing
Dark shirts with white embroidery, a woven wool scarf and the pakol; bright embroidered dresses for women.
What Nuristanis wear
Traditions
Archery with the long bow, the waj harp, part-songs and dancing at weddings.
Music and dance
Its own branch
A language of its own
The Nuristani languages
Little sets Nuristan apart more clearly than how its people speak. The Nuristani tongues are not a dialect of Persian or Pashto. They form their own branch of the Indo-Iranian family, beside the Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches, and most are carried by speech rather than writing. Five languages are usually counted, but that undersells the variety: speech shifts from valley to valley, often village to village.
Indo-Iranian family
Iranian
NuristaniIts own branch
Indo-Aryan
Five living languages
Kamkata-viri
Kamdesh & the east
Waygali-ala
Waygal valley
Ashkun
South-western valleys
Tregami
Tregam valley, lower Pech
Prasun
Parun valley
Five is the count usually given, but it understates the variety. From valley to valley the speech shifts: sometimes into a distinct tongue, sometimes only an accent, and often so different that people from neighbouring valleys cannot understand one another. Kamkata-viri alone spans Kata-vari, Kamviri and Mumviri. Cut off from each other by the mountains for generations, every valley grew its own words and customs.
Ten woven marks
The land
Ten districts in the Hindu Kush
Forests of cedar and pine, glacial rivers and terraced valleys. Each district has its own scenery, dialect and pace of life, and here, its own woven mark.
Five stones, four provinces
Gemstones of Afghanistan
Stones the world wears, from the valleys that produce them
Afghanistan gives the world emerald, lapis lazuli, ruby, tourmaline and kunzite, and most of it leaves through traders far from the mines. We buy at first hand from the people who mine or find the stones, in Nuristan and beyond it, and every stone is sold under the place it came from. These pages tell you what each stone is, where it is really dug, what it costs with the source for every figure, and how to buy it, as a collector or in quantity.
Ten districts. A language for every valley. One range of mountains.
In his own words
A letter from the valley
I was born in Nuristan. Most of what the world reads about my home was written by people who have never stood in its valleys, and this site is my attempt to put that right.
The photographs here come from the province and from my own family and friends. The facts are the ones we grew up with, checked against the record. Where something is uncertain, we say so.
If Nuristan calls to you, whether to visit it, to buy what its makers produce, or to invest in its future, write to me. I read every message.
Obaid Nuristani
Founder & CEO, born in Nuristan
Visit · Trade · Invest
Get involved
Three ways to experience Nuristan
Reading about the province is a start. When you are ready to go further, we help arrange each of these.
October 2026
Nuristan Updates
This month in Nuristan
Short, sourced news from the valleys: the weather, recovery and aid, roads and services, culture and the diaspora.
- Roads and servicesWork begins on a new bridge in Bargi Matal
Construction has started on a bridge in Bargi Matal costing about 31 million afghanis.
- Aid and recoveryA young aid worker lost to the floods is remembered
The United Nations' humanitarian office marked World Humanitarian Day by remembering Anayatullah Anayat, a 24-year-old monitoring officer who died in a flash flood while on a field mission in Nuristan this summer.
- LivelihoodsBeryl and crystal from Parun and Kantiwa sold at auction
102 kilograms of beryl and crystal from mines in Parun and Kantiwa were sold at auction for 3.9 million afghanis.
The reading list
From the journal
Reading on Nuristan
Guides and background on the culture, history and landscape of the province.
7 min read
Investing in Gemstones from Afghanistan: What Holds Value, and What to Check
People write to us asking which Afghan gemstones are a good investment. The honest answer is that a few can hold their value and most are hard to sell at a profit. This is what the auction record shows, what the risks are, and how to buy if you still want to. It is general information, not financial advice, and we sell stones, so read it knowing that.
Read more: Investing in Gemstones from Afghanistan: What Holds Value, and What to Check6 min read
Lapis Lazuli Meaning: Where the Name Comes From, and the Afghan Mine Behind It
Lapis lazuli means, word for word, stone of lazward: the Latin for stone joined to the Persian name of a blue stone from one valley in Afghanistan. That name gave English the word azure. Here is where it comes from, and what the stone has meant to the people who have held it for six thousand years.
Read more: Lapis Lazuli Meaning: Where the Name Comes From, and the Afghan Mine Behind It
7 min read
Nuristan's Gemstone Auctions: What the State Sales of 2024 to 2026 Tell Buyers
Since December 2024 Nuristan's rough kunzite, beryl, morganite and tourmaline have been sold by open auction in Du Ab, Parun and Kamdesh, for sums that now run past 120 million afghanis a sale. What was sold, who bought it, where the money went, and what a buyer abroad should take from it.
Read more: Nuristan's Gemstone Auctions: What the State Sales of 2024 to 2026 Tell Buyers
10 min read
Nuristani Music and Dance: The Waj Harp, the Songs and the Old Dances
Nuristan kept an arched harp of a kind that disappeared from the plains of Asia long ago, and a way of singing in parts that one scholar calls without parallel on the continent. The waj and the other instruments, the songs of Waygal, the dances of the old religion, and where to hear the recordings.
Read more: Nuristani Music and Dance: The Waj Harp, the Songs and the Old DancesAcross the border: the Kalash people of Chitral, cousins of the Nuristanis over the passes
Five answers
Good to know
Common questions about Nuristan
Where is Nuristan?
Nuristan is a province in eastern Afghanistan, on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush. It borders Kunar, Laghman, Panjshir and Badakhshan, and meets Pakistan's Chitral region to the east.
Is Nuristan a city or a province?
A province. Nuristan is one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, in the east of the country, with ten districts. Its capital is the town of Parun in the Parun valley. There is no city called Nuristan.
Is Nuristan in Pakistan?
No. Nuristan is in Afghanistan. It borders Pakistan's Chitral district along the high passes to the east, and related peoples live on both sides: Kati speakers who settled in Chitral after the 1890s, and the Kalash, whose old religion is related to that of Kafiristan. That shared history is why the two are often confused.
What does the name Nuristan mean?
Nuristan means the land of light. The province was called Kafiristan, the land of the unbelievers, until its people adopted Islam in the 1890s and the name was changed.
What is Nuristan known for?
Tiered timber villages, dense cedar and pine forests, wood-carving and embroidery, the rolled-wool pakol hat, and produce such as walnuts, morel mushrooms and gemstones.
Get in touch
Plan your Nuristan journey
Ready to plan a visit, source Nuristani products, or discuss an investment? Your message goes to Obaid, who is from Nuristan, and his team in Afghanistan and the UK. We reply to every message.