The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country, located in the center of the Asian continent. Afghanistan is an ancient region that is full of historical prominence, sharing history with bordering countries like Iran, Pakistan, and China, and has historically linked with several outer countries like the Soviet Union, and the United States of America. Since the 1970's Afghanistan has been involved in several ongoing brutal wars and invasions, including the current invasion of the U.S. that began in the year 2001. Geographically, the country is mountainous with wide-open plains to the North and the South. The highest point in Afghanistan is Nowshak, which is about twenty-five thousand feet in elevation. The climate is mostly dry, with a continental climate of hot summers and cold winters, and is known as the Endorheic Sistan Basin, which is the driest region in the world. The area is prone to earthquakes, and was affected most recently in 1998, when over four thousand people were killed, by a violent quake. Afghanistan is the forty-first largest country in the world, and has access to an abundance of highly important natural resources, such as Petroleum and natural gas. Other resources include uranium, coal, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, salt and lead. The country's capital and largest populated city, is Kabul, and the primary language of the people is Dari, formerly known as Persian. There are also an estimated thirty other minor languages spoken in the region, so bilingualism is very common to the country. Culturally, Afghans are a very proud people. They hold religion, family; ancestry and their independence with the utmost pride, sometimes even to extremes. There is much apprehension in the world for the people of Afghanistan, due to their extreme clan pride and willfulness to resort to the use of firearms and other weapons to resolve disputes. Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most undeveloped countries in the world and it's citizens live on an estimated two dollars per day. The unemployment rate is at forty percent, and is expected to continue to go up in the next decade as high as sixty percent. The education system is improving slowly in modern times, but with poor cultural conditions, and unsafe structures the literacy rate in this country is astounding. An estimated fifty percent of males in Afghanistan are illiterate and an even more mind numbing seventy percent of the country's women are illiterate. The imbalance in education is mostly due to the fact that most families in the country will not allow their daughters to be taught by men, and there is a shortage of women teachers in the region. Since the fall of the Taliban government in the early 2000's, the University of Kabul has reopened, admitting new students, in attempts to improve Afghanistan's academic statistics. Afghanistan is generally not a very desirable country to visit, if you are a tourist. It can be dangerous in most parts, and with the ongoing wars and disputes with surrounding regions, can be a very unsafe vacation. However, for the history buff, this country is a plethora of ancient and modern history. For more information on Afghanistan, visit http://afghanistanmicroblog.com and http://microblogafghanistan.com.

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