Swat District


Swat (Pashto:سوات pronounced [ˈswaːt̪]; historically known as Uddyana, lit. garden); is a river valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. It is the upper valley of the Swat River, which rises in the Hindu Kush range. The capital of Swat is Saidu Sharif, but the main town in the Swat valley is Mingora. It was a princely state (see The Yusafzai State of Swat) until 1969 when it was dissolved alongside Dir state and Chitral state and made part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa then known as North West Frontier Province. The valley is populated mostly by ethnic Pashtuns and Gujjar and Kohistani communities. The languages spoken in the valley are Pashto, Gojri, Torwali and Kohistani.