Any true understanding of modern Afghan history, from the Soviet invasion to the rise and fall of the Taliban, must take these ethnic identities into account. And even the peculiar mirror-image model of governance that currently prevails in Kabul is due in large part to neither the Pashtun Ghani nor the Tajik-linked Abdullah wanting to hand the reins over to a member of a competing ethnic bloc.

The following map outlines the distribution of major ethnic and tribal groups in Afghanistan.