Country Afghanistan Time zone UTC+4:30 Province Paktika Province | District Urgun District Elevation 2,315 m | |
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Urgun (Pashto: ورګون, Persian: اورگون), also called Orgun (Pashto: اورګون) or Urgin (Pashto: ورګين), is the main town of the Urgun District of Paktika Province, Afghanistan, with an estimated population of 10,665. Urgun contains the main bazaar of eastern Paktika.
Contents
Map of Urgun, Afghanistan
Names
The town of Urgun is also called Loy Urgun (لوی ورګون) or Urgun-e Kalan, "Greater Urgun".
Like many place names in Afghanistan, Urgun can be spelled a number of different ways. Orgun, Urgin, Urgum, Urgim, Urghim, Wargun, Warghun, Arghun, Urgon, and Orgon are the most popular alternative spellings.
The largely town of the "Orgun -e kalan" is mainly ethnicity Tajik. The minority "furmuli" tribe also referred to as the "orgunis" live in the central orgun. Orgon with some land for agriculture has recently seen progress of a poorly made road connecting it to the angorada border with pakistan. It has also been the witness of disastarous attacks including the one that left 106 civilians dead on a single day on June 14 2014.
History
The site of a large fortress, Urgun used to be the capital of the largely undeveloped and remote province of Paktika. In the 1970s, however, the provincial capital was moved from Urgun to the town of Sharana, due to Sharana's proximity with the main highway connecting it to the larger cities and commercial centers of Kabul and Kandahar.
The Siege of Urgun during the Soviet-Afghan War took place between 1983 and 1984. It devastated the town.