Peshawar is the capital ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly called the North-West Frontier Province) of Pakistan. Peshawar is the largest city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and by the 1998 census is the eighth-largest city of Pakistan. A large number of Internally Displaced Pakistanis from Swat, Dir, FATA and Waziristan have settled in Peshawar and their number is estimated to be around 0.5 to 1 Million making Peshawar's total population around 5 Million excluding the Afghan Refugees. Peshawar is a metropolitan city and the administrative centre and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Peshawar is situated in a large valley near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, close to the Pak-Afg border. Known as "City on the Frontier", Peshawar's strategic location on the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia has made it one of the most culturally vibrant and lively cities in the greater region. Peshawar is irrigated by various canals of the Kabul River and by its right tributary, the Bara River. Though predominantly Pashtun, Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities.
In the last three decades, there has been a significant increase in urban population, in part due to internal migration of people in search of better employment opportunities, education, and services, and in part because of the influx of Afghan refugees and other people internally displaced due to military operations and civil unrest in neighboring regions. Peshawar is the major educational, political, and business center of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Peshawar's recorded history goes back as far as at least 539 BC, making it one of the oldest living cities in South Asia.
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