Lord Curzon, Viceroy of British India, designates…

Lord Curzon, Viceroy of British India, designates the north-western districts of the Punjab Province, India’s strategically important border territory with Afghanistan, as the North-West Frontier Province on November 9, 1901.

The province covers an area of 70,709 square kilometers (27,301 square miles), including much of the current Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province but excluding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the former princely states of Amb, Chitral, Dir, Phulra and Swat.

Its capital is the city of Peshawar, and the province is composed of six divisions (Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Mardan, and Peshawar Division; Malakand will later be added as the seventh division).

Until 1947, the province will be bordered by five princely states to the north, the minor states of the Gilgit Agency to the northeast, the province of West Punjab to the east and the province of Balochistan to the south.

The Kingdom of Afghanistan lies to the northwest, with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas forming a buffer zone between the two.