Upper Dir District is a district located in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The city of Dir is its district headquarter. Geographically, it is located in the northern part of Pakistan. It borders with the Chitral district on the north, Afghanistan on the northwest, the Swat district on the east, and the Lower Dir district on the south. It shares 40 to 50 kilometers border with Afghanistan.

History

Dir was home to various popular civilizations. It has been the place where the Aryans, the Budhists, and the Mughals survived. It was also a home to the Gandhara civilization. It was invaded by Alexander The Great. In the sixteenth century, it was invaded by the Yousafzai tribe of the Pashtuns. In 1898, Yousafzai Pashtun Muhammad Sharif Khan was declared the Nawab of Dir. He was succeeded by his son Nawab Aurang Zeb Khan in 1904, who ruled until his death in 1925. Subsequently, his son Shah Jehan Khan succeeded him and ruled the state for almost 35 years. At the time of the independence of Pakistan, in 1947, Dir was still a princely state, separated from Pakistan. It was no later than 1969, when it was annexed with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Till 1996, Dir was a unit combined district. But in 1996, the Dir District was divided into Upper and Lower Dir districts.

Demographics

As of the 2023 census, Upper Dir district has 149,536 households and a population of 1,083,566. The district has a sex ratio of 98.36 males to 100 females and a literacy rate of 46.77%: 62.76% for males and 31.67% for females. 392,214 (36.24% of the surveyed population) are under 10 years of age. 47,842 (4.42%) live in urban areas. 2,415 (0.22%) of the people in the district are from religious minorities, mainly Christians. Pashto is the predominant language, spoken by 91.02% of the population. Kohistani languages are spoken by 5.11% of the population, and 3.87% of the population speak 'Other' languages.

Tribes

The people groups of the district are various Pashtun tribes of Afghan origin among other clans that settled in the region. These include the following tribes

Administration

Upper Dir District has 4 Tehsils. Wari and Larjam tehsils are part of newly created District Central Dir District.

National Assembly

This district is represented by one elected MNA (Member of National Assembly) in Pakistan National Assembly. Its constituency is NA-5 (Upper Dir).

Provincial Assembly

In the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, there are three seats for the Upper Dir district. Its constituency is PK-11, PK-12 and PK-13.

Towns

Except for the town of Dir and a number of rapidly growing towns along the main road, the population is rural, scattered in more than 1200 villages in the deep narrow valleys of the Panjkora and its tributaries. Of these, notable villages are

Division of Dir

Popular places

Notable people