Kohat Division
Kohat Division
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Kohat Division

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Kohat Division

Kohat Division is one of the seven divisions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It consists of five districts: Hangu, Karak, Kohat, Kurram, and Orakzai. The division borders Bannu Division to the south and west, Peshawar Division to the north and east, the province of Punjab to the east, and Afghanistan to the northwest. CNIC code of Kohat Division is 14.

Districts are the administrative units. They are at a lower level than a division and higher than a tehsil one level below divisions in the administrative hierarchy of Pakistan. Kohat Division consists of the following five districts: Hangu, Karak, Kohat, Kurram, and Orakzai.

In 1941, the area which today covers the division (excluding Orakzai and Kurram) was known as Kohat District. Kohat District was one of five trans-Indus districts in the North-West Frontier Province of British India. It was split into the Tehsils of Hangu, Kohat, and Teri. Here is a description of the area given by the Imperial Gazetteer of India.

Central District of the North-West Frontier Province, lying between 32° 48' and 33° 45'N. and 70° 30' and 72° 1' E., with an area of 2,973 square miles. The district has the shape of an irregular rhomboid, which one arm stretching north-east towards the Khwarra-Zira forest in Peshāwar District. It is bounded on the north by Peshāwar District, and by the hills inhabited by the Jowāki and Pass Afrīdis; on the north-west by Orakzai Tīrāh; on the south-west by the Kābul Khel territory (Wazīristān); on the south-east by Bannu and the Miānwālī District of the Punjab; and on the east by the Indus. Its greatest length in 104 miles, and its greatest width 50 miles. The District consists of a succession of ranges of broken hills, whose general trend is east and west, and between which lie open valleys, seldom more than 4 or 5 miles in width. These ranges are of no great height, though several peaks attain an altitude of 4,700 or 4,900 feet. As the District is generally elevated, Hangu to the northward being 2,800 feet and Kohāt, its head-quarters, 1,700 feet above sea-level, the ranges rise to only inconsiderable heights above the plain. The general slope is to the east, towards the Indus, but on the south-west the fall is towards the west into the Kurram river. The principal streams are the Kohāt and Teri Tois (‘streams’), both tributaries of the Indus, and the Shkalai which flows into the Kurram. The Kohāt Toi rises in the Māmozai hills. It has but a small perennial flow, which disapeears before it reaches the town of Kohāt, but the stream reappears some miles lower down and thence flows continuously to the Indus. The Teri Toi has little or no perennial flow, and the Shkalai is also small, though perennial. The most fertile part is the Hangu tahsīl, which comprises the valley of Lower and Upper Mīrānzai. The rest of the district consists of ranges of hills much broken into spurs, ravines, and valleys, which are sometimes cultivated but more often bare and sandy.

— Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 15, p. 341.

Kurram, on the other hand, was an agency in the province bordering Kohat District. It is also described in the Gazetteer.

A Political Agency in the North-West Frontier Province, lying between 33° 19' and 34° 3' N. and 69° 39' and 70° 28' E., and comprising that section of the valley of the Kurram river which lies between the Peiwar Kotal in the west and the borders of Mīrānzai in the east. The Agency has an area of about 1,278 square miles, its maximum length from Thal to the Peiwar Kotal being 72 miles as the crow flies, and its breadth varying from 12 to 24 miles. Bounded on the north by the Safed Koh or 'White Mountain' (called in Pashtū the Spīn Ghar), which separates it from Ningrahār, it adjoins Pāra-Chamkanni and the country of the Māssozai section of the Orakzai and that of the Zaimusht tribe on the east, its south-eastern corner abutting on the Mīrānzai country of Kohāt District. On the south it borders on Northern Wazīristān; and on the south-west and west it is contiguous with the Afghān district of Khost, of which the Jāji Maidan or plain, the Chamkanni country, and Hariob Jāji lie on its western extremity.

— Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 16, p. 47.

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