
Pashtunistan () or Pakhtunistan is a historical region on the crossroads of Central and South Asia, located on the Iranian Plateau, inhabited by the Pashtun people of southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, wherein Pashtun culture, the Pashto language, and identity have been based. Alternative names historically used for the region include Pashtūnkhwā or Pakhtūnkhwā (), or simply the Pashtun Belt.
{{Infobox settlement | name = Pashtunistan | native_name = پښتونستان | native_name_lang = ps | settlement_type = Historical region | flag_alt = | image_seal = | seal_alt = | image_shield = | shield_alt = | motto = | image_map = Major_ethnic_groups_of_Pakistan_in_1980_borders_removed.jpg | map_alt = | map_caption = Pashtunistan as in the Pashtun-majority areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan (in green) | subdivision_type = Countries | subdivision_name = | government_footnotes = | leader_party = | leader_title = | leader_name = | unit_pref = Metric | area_footnotes = | area_urban_footnotes = | area_rural_footnotes = | area_metro_footnotes = | area_magnitude = | area_note = | area_water_percent = | area_rank = | area_total_km2 = | area_land_km2 = | area_water_km2 = | dimensions_footnotes = | elevation_footnotes = | elevation_m = | population_footnotes = | population_total = | population_as_of = 2024 | population_density_km2 = auto | population_note = | timezone1 = UTC+04:30 (Afghanistan)UTC+05:00 (Pakistan) | blank_name = Largest cities | blank_info =
| demographics_type1 = Demographics | demographics1_footnotes = (Naskh)) evolved originally from the Indian word "Pathanistan" (Hindustani: (Nastaleeq), पठानिस्तान (Devanagari)). The concept of Pashtunistan was inspired by the term "Pakhtunkhwa". British Indian leaders, including the Khudai Khidmatgar, started using the word "Pathanistan" to refer to the region, however the word "Pashtunistan" was more popular among Pashtuns.
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Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).