Bokhtar

Bokhtar (Tajik: Бохтар), is a city in southwestern Tajikistan serving as the capital of the Khatlon Region. Situated in the Vakhsh River valley on the river's left bank approximately 100 km (62 mi) south of Dushanbe and 150 km (93 mi) north of Kunduz, Afghanistan, it is the largest city in southern Tajikistan and the country's third largest urban centre after Dushanbe and Khujand. As of 2019 the city's population was estimated at 110,800 though the population fluctuates seasonally due to labour migration to Russia. The name Bākhtar derives from the Avestan term apāxtara (north) which entered Middle Persian as abāxtar and later evolved in New Persian to bākhtar, now designating the west; in the Zoroastrian cosmogonical division the northern direction was associated with the realm of Ahriman and the name was consequently avoided in ritual contexts. Historical documentation of the city is scarce particularly for the period before the 17th century when it first appears in written sources under the name Kurganteppa. Existing narratives draw primarily from Soviet era administrative records, oral histories, and limited archaeological excavations in the surrounding region including the nearby Ajina Tepe Buddhist monastery complex, a 7th–8th century site that is today the largest surviving Buddhist monastery in Central Asia.