Puli Khumri in the context of "Surkh Kotal"

Charikar, also known as Imam Abu Hanifa or Imam Azam, is the capital of Parwan Province in northern Afghanistan. It also serves as the district center of Charikar District, which has a population of around 171,200 residents. They include nearly all ethnic groups of Afghanistan. The city was officially renamed in December 2022 to honor the 8th-century Sunni Muslim theologian and jurist Abu Hanifa, who is also sometimes called Imam Azam ("The Great Imam") and was the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic law.

Charikar lies on the Afghan Ring Road, 69 km (43 mi) from Kabul along the route to the northern provinces. Travelers would pass the city when traveling to Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz or Puli Khumri. Despite the proximity to Kabul, slightly more than half of the land is not built-up. Of the built-up land, almost equal parts are residential (37%) and vacant plots (32%), with a grid network of road coverage amounting to 19% of built-up land area, as of 2015. The city is at the gateway to the Panjshir Valley, where the Shamali plains meet the foothills of the Hindu Kush, and is known for its pottery and high-quality grapes.

Baghlan is a city in northern Afghanistan, in the eponymous Baghlan Province. It is located three miles east of the Kunduz River, 35 miles south of Khanabad, and about 500 metres above sea level in the northern Hindu Kush. Baghlan's capital, Puli Khumri, is known to be an economic hub connected to eight other provinces by the Kabul-North highway.[1]

Baghlan (Dari: ولایت بغلان, romanized: Wilāyat-e Baghlān and Pashto: د بغلان ولایت, romanized: Da Baghlān Wilāyat) is one of the northern provinces of Afghanistan. It is bordered by Samangan to the west, Kunduz to the northeast, Takhar to the east, Bamyan to the southwest, and Parwan and Panjshir to the south. The provincial capital is Pul-e Khumri, which functions as the main administrative, economic, and population center of the province.

Covering an area of approximately 21,100 square kilometers and having an estimated population of about 1.1 million people (as of 2025), Baghlan is characterized by a varied physical geography. The northern part of the province consists largely of fertile plains suitable for intensive agriculture, while the southern part is dominated by mountainous terrain associated with the eastern extensions of the Hindu Kush. Several rivers and tributaries belonging to the Kunduz River basin traverse the province and play a central role in agricultural production, settlement distribution, and local water management.

Dahana i Ghuri district (pop: 86,400) is located in the most southwestern part of Baghlan province, Afghanistan. The capital is Dahana i Ghuri (also:Dahaneh-ye Ġawri, Dahana Gori, Dahana Ghori, Dahaneh-ye Ghowri). Its population is about 3,400 people. It is connected with Baghlan and Puli Khumri with an all-weather primary road.

District profile:

National Highway 01 or NH01, formally called the Ring Road (Pashto: د افغانستان حلقوي سړک; Dari: شاهراه حلقوی افغانستان), is a 2,200 km (1,400 mi) two-lane and four-lane road network circulating inside Afghanistan, connecting the following cities (clockwise): Kabul, Maidan Shar, Ghazni, Qalat, Kandahar, Delaram, Herat, Qala e Naw, Maymana, Andkhoy, Sheberghan, Mazar-i-Sharif, Puli Khumri, Charikar, and back to Kabul. It has extensions that connect Jalalabad, Bamyan, Khost, Spin Boldak, Lashkargah, Zaranj (Route 606), Farah, Islam Qala, Torghundi, Ymamnazar, Hairatan, Kunduz, and Fayzabad. The Ring Road is part of AH1, the longest route of the Asian Highway Network. National Highway 01 consists of four major sections, NH0101 to NH0104, linking the major economic centers.