Peshawar (Pashto, Hindko, Urdu ) is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated in a large valley near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, between the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau and the Indus Valley. Known as City on the Frontier in Persian, Peshawar's strategic location on the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia has made it one of the most culturally vibrant and lively cities in the greater region.
Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse cities. In the last three decades, there has been a significant increase in urban population, in part due to internal migration of people in search of better employment opportunities, education, and services, and in part because of the influx of Afghan refugees and other people displaced by military operations and civil unrest in neighboring regions. Peshawar is the major educational, political, and business center of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Peshawar was a major centre of Buddhist learning until the 10th century. As an indication of its importance, Peshawar was also the site of Kanishka's Great Stupa which housed relics of Gautama Buddha, and was widely considered to be the tallest building in the world at the time of its construction. Ancient Chinese manuscripts tell of Buddhist pilgrims such as Faxian, Sung Yun, and Xuanzang reporting that the 7th century stupa, which was rediscovered in the south east of the city at a site called Shahji-ki-Dheri in 1907–08, had a height of 591–689 feet.
The Kushan king Kanishka, moved the capital from Pushkalavati (now called Charsadda in the Peshawar valley) to Purushapura in the 2nd century CE, and in the eighteenth century, the Durrani king Timur Shah Durrani made Peshawar the winter capital of Afghanistan, and it remained as the winter capital until the Sikhs rose to power in the early nineteenth century. The current name "Peshawar" may derive from the Sanskrit Purushapura (meaning "city of men") and is known as Pekhawar or Peshawar in Pashto and Pishor in Hindko. The area originally belonged to Gandhara and the eastern Iranian tribes of Scythian origin and later became part of the Kushan Empire.
Peshawar is located in an area that was dominated by various tribes of Indo-Iranian origin. The region was affiliated with the ancient kingdom of Gandhara and had links to the Harappan civilization of the Indus River Valley and to Bactria and other ancient kingdoms based in Afghanistan. According to the historian Tertius Chandler, Peshawar had a population of 120,000 in the year 100 BCE, making it the seventh most populous city in the world.
Peshawar formed the eastern capital of the empire of Gandhara under the Kushan king Kanishka, who reigned from at least 127 CE. After the 2 or 3 BC, Buddhist missionaries arrived to Zoroastrian and animist Peshawar seeking counsel with the Zoroastrian Kushan rulers. Surprisingly, rather than being repelled, their teachings were embraced by the Zoroastrian Kushans who converted to Buddhism and gave the religion official status in the city. Following this move by the Kushans, Peshawar became a great center of Buddhist learning even though Zoroastrianism and animism seem to have survived in the majority population (particularly the rural areas). Kanishka however, who was now an ardent follower of Buddhism built what may have been the tallest building in the world at the time, a giant stupa, to house the Buddha's relics, just outside the Ganj Gate of the old city of Peshawar.
