Helmand River in the context of "Hazarajat"

The Sistan Basin is an inland endorheic basin encompassing parts of southwestern Afghanistan and parts of southeastern Iran. It is one of the driest regions in the world and an area subject to prolonged droughts. Its watershed is a system of rivers flowing from the highlands of Afghanistan into freshwater lakes and marshes and then to its ultimate destination: Afghanistan's saline Godzareh Depression, part of the extensive Sistan terminal basin. The Helmand River drains the basin's largest watershed, fed mainly by snowmelt from the mountains of Hindu Kush, but other rivers contribute also.

A basalt hill, known as Mount Khajeh, rises beside the lakes and marshes of the basin.

The Kabul River (Pashto: د کابل سیند, romanized: Də Kābəl Sind; Dari: دریای کابل, romanized: Daryā-yi Kābul), anciently known as the Kubha (Sanskrit: कुभा, romanized: Kubhā) and Cophen (Ancient Greek: Κωφήν, romanized: Kōphḗn; /ˈkoʊfeɪn/), is a 700-kilometre-long (430 mi) river that emerges in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in the northeastern part of Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan. It is separated from the watershed of the Helmand River by the Unai Pass. The Kabul River empties into the Indus River near Attock, Pakistan. It is the main river in eastern Afghanistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

The Baba Mountain range (Pashto: بابا غر Bâbâ Ǧar; Persian: کوه بابا Kōh-i Bābā; or Kūh-e Bābā; Kōh or Kūh meaning ′mountain′, Bābā meaning ′father′) is the western extension of the Hindu Kush, and the origin of Afghanistan's Kabul, Arghandab, Helmand, Farah, Hari, Murghab, Balkh, and Kunduz rivers. The mountain range is crowned by Foladi peak (or Shah Fuladi) rising 5048 m (some old maps and dictionaries: 5143 m) above sea level, and is located south of Bamyan.

The Koh-e Firoz plateau merges farther to the west by gentle gradients into the Paropamise, and which may be traced across the Hari River to Mashad. To the southwest of the culminating peaks, long spurs divide the upper tributaries of the Helmand River, and separate its basin from that of the Farah River. These spurs retain a considerable altitude, marked by peaks exceeding 11,000 ft (3,400 m). They sweep in a broad band of roughly parallel ranges to the southwest, preserving their general direction till they abut on the Great Registan desert to the west of Kandahar, where they terminate in a series of detached and broken anticlinals whose sides are swept by a sea of encroaching sand. The long, straight, level-backed ridges which divide the Argandab, the Tarnak and Arghastan valleys, flank the route from Kandahar to Ghazni.The high jagged peaks above the Hajigak Pass, blue-black and shining, shimmer in the sunlight for they contain an estimated reserve of 2 billion tons of iron ore; Asia's richest deposit. The very steep descent from the Hajigak Pass (3,700 m (12,100 ft)) with its numerous hairpin bends leads to the sparkling Kalu River, known locally as the Sauzao or Green Waters. It is bordered by poplars and several charming villages.

The Helmand culture (also Helmand civilization), c. 3300–2350 BCE, is a Bronze Age culture that flourished mainly in the middle and lower valley of the Helmand River, originally in eastern Iran (Zabol, other name: Sistan in Sistan and Baluchestan Province) and southern Afghanistan (Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz provinces) , predominantly in the third millennium BCE.

The people of the Helmand culture lived partly in cities with temples and palaces, providing evidence for a complex and advanced social structure. The main cities so far known are Shahr-i Sokhta (in Zabol, Iran) and Mundigak (in modern Afghanistan). Research on the finds from both places showed that these cities shared the same culture. These are the earliest discovered cities in this part of the world, although the village Mehrgarh further to the southeast is considerably older. It is possible that the Helmand culture once formed one ancient state.

Sistān (Persian: سیستان), also known as Sakastān (سَكستان, lit. 'the land of the Saka', current name: Zabol) and Sijistan (سِجِستان), is a historical region in south-eastern Iran, and extending across the borders of south-western Afghanistan, and south-western Pakistan. Mostly corresponding to the then Achaemenid region of Drangiana and extending southwards of the Helmand River not far off from the city of Alexandria in Arachosia. Largely desert, the region is bisected by the Helmand River, which empties into the Hamun Lake, located in Zabol, that forms part of the border between Iran and Afghanistan.

The Sanglakh Range is an offshoot of the Hindu Kush, just west of Kabul in Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan. Its main peak is the Unai; both the Helmand and Kabul rivers rise in the Sanglakh Range, separated by the Unai Pass.

Helmand (Pashto and Dari: هلمند), known in ancient times as Hermand, Hirmand, and Hethumand, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, in the south of the country. It is the largest province by area, covering 58,584 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi) area. The province contains 18 districts, encompassing over 1,000 villages, and roughly 1,446,230 settled people. Lashkargah serves as the provincial capital. Helmand was part of the Greater Kandahar region until made into a separate province by the Afghan government in the 20th century. It is largely populated by Pashtuns.

The Helmand River flows through the mainly desert region of the province, providing water used for irrigation. The Kajaki Dam, which is one of Afghanistan's major reservoirs, is located in the Kajaki district. Helmand is believed to be one of the world's largest opium producing regions, responsible for around 42% of the world's total production. This is believed to be more than the whole of Myanmar, which is the second-largest producing nation after Afghanistan. The region also produces tobacco, sugar beets, cotton, sesame, wheat, mung beans, maize, nuts, sunflowers, onions, potato, tomato, cauliflower, peanut, apricot, grape, and melon. The province has a domestic airport (Bost Airport), in the city of Lashkargah that was heavily used by NATO-led forces. The former British Camp Bastion and the U.S. Camp Leatherneck is a short distance southwest of Lashkargah.

The Khanate of Kalat, also known as the Brahui Confederacy, was a Brahui Khanate that originated in the modern-day Kalat region of Pakistan. Formed in 1666 due to the threat of Mughal expansion in the region, it controlled the wider Balochistan at its greatest extent in the mid-18th century, extending from Kerman in the west to Sindh in the east and from Helmand River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.

The Khanate of Kalat lost considerable area to Qajar Iran and the Emirate of Afghanistan in the early 19th century, and the city of Kalat was itself sacked by the British in 1839. Kalat became a self-governing state in a subsidiary alliance with British India after the signature of the Treaty of Kalat by the Khan of Kalat and the Brahui Sardars in 1875, and the supervision of Kalat became a task of the Baluchistan Agency. Kalat was briefly independent from 12 August 1947 until 27 March 1948, when its ruler Ahmad Yar Khan acceded to Pakistan, making it one of the Princely states of Pakistan.