Afghanistan (Afghan`istan`) , a country in the centre of Asia, between India on the east and Persia on the west, its length about 600 m. and its breadth about 500 m., a plateau of immense mountain masses, and high, almost inaccessible, valleys, occupying 278,000 sq. m., with extremes of climate, and a mixed turbulent population, majority Afghans. The country, though long a bone of contention between England and Russia, is now wholly under the sphere of British influence.
Population (circa 1900) given as 5,000,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Affre * Af`ghans, The