Afghanistan–Tajikistan border in the context of "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan"

Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. Afghanistan's population is estimated to be between 40 and 50 million.

Human habitation in Afghanistan dates to the Middle Paleolithic era. Popularly referred to as the graveyard of empires, the land has witnessed numerous military campaigns, including those by the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Maurya Empire, Arab Muslims, the Mongols, the British, the Soviet Union, and a US-led coalition. Afghanistan also served as the source from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals, among others, rose to form major empires. Because of the various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres, the area was a center for Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam. The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani Afghan Empire in the 18th century, although Dost Mohammad Khan is sometimes considered to be the founder of the first modern Afghan state. Afghanistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire. From India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First Anglo-Afghan War; the Second Anglo-Afghan War saw a British victory. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign political hegemony, and emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1926. This monarchy lasted almost half a century, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973, following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established.

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is its capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east and is narrowly separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. It has a population of more than 10.7 million people.

The territory was previously home to cultures of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, including the Oxus civilisation in west, with the Indo-Iranians arriving during the Andronovo culture. Parts of country were part of the Sogdian and Bactrian civilisations, and was ruled by those including the Achaemenids, Alexander the Great, the Greco-Bactrians, the Kushans, the Kidarites and Hephthalites, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Samanid Empire, the Kara-Khanids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, the Mongols, Timurids and Khanate of Bukhara. The region was later conquered by the Russian Empire, before becoming part of the Soviet Union. Within the Soviet Union, the country's borders were drawn when it was part of Uzbekistan as an autonomous republic before becoming a constituent republic of the Soviet Union on 5 December 1929.

The Panj, traditionally known as the Ochus River, is a river in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and a tributary of the Amu Darya. The river is 921 kilometres (572 mi) long and has a basin area of 114,000 square kilometres (44,000 sq mi). It forms a considerable part of the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border.

The river is formed by the confluence of the Pamir River and the Wakhan River near the village of Qalʿa-ye Panja (Qalʽeh-ye Panjeh). From there, it flows westwards, marking part of the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. After passing the city of Khorugh, capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan it receives water from one of its main tributaries, the Bartang River. It then turns towards the southwest, before joining the river Vakhsh and forming the greatest river of Central Asia, the Amu Darya. The Panj played an important role during Soviet times, and was a strategic river during the Soviet military operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Zorkul (Dari: زارکول; Pashto: زارکول; Tajik: Зоркӯл, romanized: Zārkul) is a lake in the Pamir Mountains that runs along the border between the Wakhan District in Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region of Tajikistan. It is part of both the Wakhan National Park of Afghanistan and the Tajik National Park.