Introduction
These 5 photos show the same map through different zooms. What is interesting in this map is the information it offers about our country and the region in the past. For example we can see that the major cities of Khorasan were: Balkh, Bamyan, Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, Lashkargah, Ghur, Herat, Nishapur, Meshed and Merv. As the map shows, of these 11 major cities, the first 8 are now in Afghanistan; Of the last 3 cities, Nishapur and Meshed are now in Iran, and Merv in present day Turkmenistan. So it is quite visible that the main body of yesterday's glorious Khorasan corresponds to today's war-torn Afghanistan.
We can also see that Khorasan has been one of the largest provinces/lands in the region compared to the provinces surrounding it. The map also informs us about who all were our neighbours. From the east, Khorasan shared borders with Kashmir, Panjab and possibly Sind (Indus river marking the probable eastern border). In north, Khorasan had borders with Khwarezm, Soghdiana and possibly Farghana (Oxdus river or Amu Darya partially marking the probable northern border). On the western side we had Persia (in 1935 the name Persia was changed to Iran). And in the south we bordered with Sistan. Though during the rule of many Khorasanian dynasties Sistan was part of Khorasan and our land did stretch to the coasts of the Arabian Sea, and of the Persian Gulf. The Timurid and the Ghaznavid empires and Ahmad Shah Abdali's era are some examples. However, in 19th century the Mohamadzai Amirs lost Balouchistan to the Biritish and Khorasan became permanantly land-locked. And at the end of 19th century, the ruthless Amir Abdurahman (1880-1901), signed the final border treaties with Russia and Britain (1893). He lost more provinces to them and fixed the borders as they are today, and named the remaining geographical entity, Afghanistan. While Abdurahman's own father, Amir Mohamad Afzal Khan (1866-1867), had marked his coin with the Dari (Persian) verse whose literal translation would sound as: "Mohamad Afzal became Amir of the land of Khorasan". This shows that even until 140 years ago the Kings or Amirs of this land still called their kingdom or emirate, Khorasan.
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