Baġlān

Baghlan lies on the northern approaches to the Hindu Kush, in the country watered by the Kunduz River and its tributaries. Its name preserves a Bactrian word meaning an image temple, found in an inscription from the Kushan sanctuary at Surkh Kotal. There, a monumental stairway and a temple complex stood above the plain, testifying to the religious and royal culture of ancient Bactria. The valleys descending from the mountains join the cultivated lowlands farther north.