Kohat Division کوہاٹ ڈویژن کوهاټ څانګه‎
Division
Images, from top down, left to right: The tomb of aDurrani prince in the city ofKohat; The Hangu-Kohat road, connectingHangu and Kohat, two of the Division's major cities; A scene inKurram District; Mountains inOrakzai District; Fields inKarak District
Kohat Division (red) inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa
Coordinates:33°30′00″N71°03′00″E / 33.50000°N 71.05000°E /33.50000; 71.05000
Country	Pakistan
Province	Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Government
• Type	Divisional Administration
• Commissioner	N/A
• Regional Police Officer	N/A
Area [1]A
• Division	12,377 km2 (4,779 sq mi)
Population  (2023 Pakistani Census)
• Division	3,752,436
• Density	303.18/km2 (785.23/sq mi)
• Urban	468,004 (12.47%)
• Rural	3,284,432 (87.53%)
Native Speakers [2]
• Speakers	Largest: Pashto (95.07%) Others: Hindko (4.1%)
Literacy [3]
• Literacy rate	Total: (50.89%) Male: (68.87%) Female: (32.51%)
Time zone	UTC+5 (PST)
National Assembly Seats (2018)[4]	Total (6)B  PTI (4)  MMA (1)  PPP (1)
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Seats (2018)[5][6]	Total (10)  PTI (4)  MMA (3)  Indep. (2)  JUI(F) (1)
Website	ckd.kp.gov.pk

Kohat Division is one of the sevendivisions in theKhyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It consists of fivedistricts:Hangu,Karak,Kohat,Kurram, andOrakzai.^[7][8] The division bordersBannu Division to the south and west,Peshawar Division to the north and east, the province ofPunjab to the east, andAfghanistan to the northwest.CNIC code ofKohat Division is 14.

Districts are the administrative units. They are at a lower level than a division and higher than a tehsil one level below divisions in the administrative hierarchy of Pakistan. Kohat Division consists of the following fivedistricts:Hangu,Karak,Kohat,Kurram, andOrakzai.^[8]

In 1941, the area which today covers the division (excluding Orakzai and Kurram) was known as Kohat District. Kohat District was one of five trans-Indus districts in the North-West Frontier Province ofBritish India. It was split into the Tehsils of Hangu, Kohat, and Teri.^[11] Here is a description of the area given by the Imperial Gazetteer of India.

Central District of the North-West Frontier Province, lying between 32° 48' and 33° 45'N. and 70° 30' and 72° 1' E., with an area of 2,973 square miles. The district has the shape of an irregular rhomboid, which one arm stretching north-east towards the Khwarra-Zira forest in Peshāwar District. It is bounded on the north by Peshāwar District, and by the hills inhabited by the Jowāki and Pass Afrīdis; on the north-west by Orakzai Tīrāh; on the south-west by the Kābul Khel territory (Wazīristān); on the south-east by Bannu and the Miānwālī District of the Punjab; and on the east by the Indus. Its greatest length in 104 miles, and its greatest width 50 miles.The District consists of a succession of ranges of broken hills, whose general trend is east and west, and between which lie open valleys, seldom more than 4 or 5 miles in width. These ranges are of no great height, though several peaks attain an altitude of 4,700 or 4,900 feet. As the District is generally elevated, Hangu to the northward being 2,800 feet and Kohāt, its head-quarters, 1,700 feet above sea-level, the ranges rise to only inconsiderable heights above the plain. The general slope is to the east, towards the Indus, but on the south-west the fall is towards the west into the Kurram river. The principal streams are the Kohāt and Teri Tois (‘streams’), both tributaries of the Indus, and the Shkalai which flows into the Kurram. The Kohāt Toi rises in the Māmozai hills. It has but a small perennial flow, which disapeears before it reaches the town of Kohāt, but the stream reappears some miles lower down and thence flows continuously to the Indus. The Teri Toi has little or no perennial flow, and the Shkalai is also small, though perennial. The most fertile part is the Hangutahsīl, which comprises the valley of Lower and Upper Mīrānzai. The rest of the district consists of ranges of hills much broken into spurs, ravines, and valleys, which are sometimes cultivated but more often bare and sandy.

Kurram, on the other hand, was an agency in the province bordering Kohat District. It is also described in the Gazetteer.

A Political Agency in the North-West Frontier Province, lying between 33° 19' and 34° 3' N. and 69° 39' and 70° 28' E., and comprising that section of the valley of the Kurram river which lies between the Peiwar Kotal in the west and the borders of Mīrānzai in the east. The Agency has an area of about 1,278 square miles, its maximum length from Thal to the Peiwar Kotal being 72 miles as the crow flies, and its breadth varying from 12 to 24 miles. Bounded on the north by the Safed Koh or 'White Mountain' (called in Pashtū the Spīn Ghar), which separates it from Ningrahār, it adjoins Pāra-Chamkanni and the country of the Māssozai section of the Orakzai and that of the Zaimusht tribe on the east, its south-eastern corner abutting on the Mīrānzai country of Kohāt District. On the south it borders on Northern Wazīristān; and on the south-west and west it is contiguous with the Afghān district of Khost, of which the Jāji Maidan or plain, the Chamkanni country, and Hariob Jāji lie on its western extremity.

At that time, the area that would later become Orakzai District was an unadministered patch of land known as Tīrāh. Its description is below.

A mountainous tract of ‘unadministered’ territory in the North-West Frontier Province, lying between 33° 37' and 34°N 70° 30' and 71° 15' E. It is inhabited in the summer months by all the sections of the Orakzai, two sections of the Jowāki Afrīdis, and by the Kulla Khel Afrīdis. The name is also used in an extended sense to include almost the whole territory except the Bāzār and Khyber valleys inhabited by these tribed, the portions occupied by them in the winter months being distinguished as Lower Tīrāh. Tīrāh thus consists of the country watered by the Mastūrah, one of the main branches of the Bārā, which flows through the centre of the country, the Khānki Toi, and the Khurmāna — three rivers which rise within a few miles of Mittughar (12,470 feet), a point on the Safed Koh in 33° 55' N. and 70° 37' E.

At the time of theOne Unit policy, Kohat Districtbecame a part of the then-much-largerPeshawar Division.^[1] When the policy ended, though, Kohat District stayed in the division.

The area received full-fledged division status between thePakistani censuses of1981 and1998, and during the same time period, Hangu Tehsil and Karak Tehsil (formerly Teri Tehsil) were also upgraded, to district status (becomingHangu District andLakki Marwat District).^[1]

In August 2000, Kohat Division wasabolished along with every other division in the country, but wasreinstated (with all the other divisions of Pakistan) eight years later after theelections of 2008.

In 2018, the25th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was passed by theParliament of Pakistan and theKhyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. This entirely and fully merged the seven agencies of theFederally Administered Tribal Areas and the sixFrontier Regions with the province ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa. With this merger, Kohat Division gained the agencies of Kurram and Orakzai, which becamedistricts, and theFrontier Region Kohat (which was fully merged intoKohat District as Darra Adam Khel Subdivision).^[8]

Kohat Division has a total area of 12,377 km² (4,779 sq mi).^[1]Kurram andKarak Districts are the two largest districts in the division, having areas of 3,380 km² (1,310 sq mi) and 3,371 km² (1,302 sq mi) respectively. Together they make up about 55% of the area of the division.Kohat District, despite being the most populous, comes in as the third largest district in the province with an area of 2,991 km² (1,155 sq mi). The two smaller districts of the division,Hangu (with an area of only 1,097 km² (424 sq mi)) andOrakzai (with an area of 1,538 km² (594 sq mi)) make up the interior of the division, wedged between the three larger districts to their west and east.

The importantKurram River (a major tributary of theIndus River) begins in this division, in Kurram District.

To Kohat Division's northeast, you will findPeshawar Division, to the division's southwest,Bannu Division can be found. To the southeast of Kohat Division, the divisions ofSargodha andRawalpindi inthe province of Punjab can be found, and Kohat Division borders theAfghanistan country to its northwest.

As of the2023 Census of Pakistan, the division had a population of 3,752,436^[7] roughly equal to the country ofCroatia^[16] or the US state ofOklahoma.^[17]

Kohat, the division's namesake and largest city, is situated inKohat District and has over 200,000 inhabitants. Kohat is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa'sfourth-largest city and is a fast-growing city whose population grew at a rate of more than 3% every year between 1998 and 2017.^[18]Karak, Kohat Division's third-largest city, is the largest city and namesake ofKarak District. Having a population just over 50,000, it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's24th largest city.^[19]Hangu, Kohat Division's second-largest city, is the largest city and namesake ofHangu District. Having a population just under 50,000, it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's27th largest city.^[20] In 1998, Hangu was larger than Karak, but due to Karak's fast growth, has been overtaken.^[1]Sadda, inKurram District, is the fourth-largest city in Kohat Division, with about 35,000 inhabitants. It was the second-largest city in the now-defunctFederally Administered Tribal Areas and is the40th largest city in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is a fast-growing city (with a population growth rate of 3.75% every year between 1998 and 2017, which means its population more than doubled during that period) and is more than six times larger thanParachinar, Kurram District's administrative district capital.^[21]Orakzai District is the only district in the division without a single urbanized area. It is entirely rural.

The division has one cantonment, the Kohat Cantonment, adjacent to the city of Kohat which had a population of 36,935, making up the division's entire military population. This made 1.15% of the entire population of the division active military personnel.^[18]

In 1998, the dominant language in the division wasPashto, with over 90% of the population speaking it as their mother tongue.Punjabi is spoken by about 1% of the population, andUrdu andSaraiki are spoken by about 0.35% and 0.3% of the population respectively.^[22] Of the remaining 5% of the population, most are suspected to speak theKohati dialect ofHindko (a language for which official statistics were not collected in 1998), which was predominant in urban Kohat more than a century ago.

Religious groups in Kohat Division (British North-West Frontier Province era)

Religious group	1881[23]		1891[24]		1901[25]		1911[26]		1921[27]		1931[28]		1941[29]
	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%
Islam	169,219	93.21%	187,661	92.36%	199,722	91.67%	208,868	93.79%	197,496	92.23%	218,445	92.45%	266,224	91.99%
Hinduism	9,828	5.41%	10,791	5.31%	14,480	6.65%	10,848	4.87%	12,879	6.01%	13,393	5.67%	17,527	6.06%
Sikhism	2,240	1.23%	4,474	2.2%	3,344	1.53%	2,739	1.23%	2,674	1.25%	3,249	1.38%	4,349	1.5%
Christianity	212	0.12%	197	0.1%	317	0.15%	222	0.1%	1,074	0.5%	1,186	0.5%	1,304	0.45%
Jainism	41	0.02%	50	0.02%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Zoroastrianism	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Buddhism	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Judaism	—	—	0	0%	2	0%	13	0.01%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Others	0	0%	2	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Total population	181,540	100%	203,175	100%	217,865	100%	222,690	100%	214,123	100%	236,273	100%	289,404	100%
Note:British North-West Frontier Province era figures are forKohat District, which roughly corresponds to present-day Kohat Division.

• Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
• Kohat District
  • Kohat
  • Kohati

A.^ Before 2018, the Kurram Agency (nowKurram District), the Orakzai Agency (nowOrakzai District), and theFrontier Region Kohat were not a part of Kohat Division, but were a part of theFederally Administered Tribal Areas, then outsideKhyber Pakhtunkhwa.

B.^ There were only three constituencies solely inside Kohat Division at the time of the2018 Pakistani general election, but there was a fourth constituency,NA-51, that was made of regions from different divisions. NA-51 covered the Frontier Region Kohat in Kohat Division, but the area only makes up 33.15% of the population of the constituency and 3.69% of the population of the division, so it is omitted in the infobox. That seat was won byMuttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

C.^ At the time of the2018 Pakistani general election,Kohat District sent three representatives to theKPK Assembly andHangu District andKarak District sent two each, butelections were held a year later (in 2019) in the areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that were formerly part of theFederally Administered Tribal Areas. At the time of the 2019 elections,Kurram District elected two representatives, andOrakzai District elected one representative, which add up to ten for the entire division. Once again, though, there was another constituency, PK-115, that was made of regions from different divisions. PK-115 (just like NA-51) covered the Frontier Region Kohat in Kohat Division, but the area only makes up 33.15% of the population of the constituency and 3.69% of the population of the division, so it is omitted in the infobox. The seat was won byJamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F).^[30]

• Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

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