Physical map of Afghanistan

Physical map of Afghanistan shows the shape of the land with shaded relief and colors for elevation. Rivers and lakes are drawn in blue, and dashed lines show country borders. Download the labeled map or use the version without names as a worksheet.

Physical map of Afghanistan
Physical map of AfghanistanPNG 2000×1599 (1.5 MB)Physical map of Afghanistan (PDF A4) (745 KB)

How to read this map

Named features on this map include Paropamisus Mountains, Registan Desert, Dasht-e Margo, Shāh Fōlādī, Kuh-e Jang Qal'eh, Sikaram, Noshaq. The terrain colors help locate these features within the surrounding lowlands, plateaus and mountain belts.

The mapped river network includes Pamir, Panj, Amu Darya, Helmand. Only selected rivers are labeled at this scale; a missing label does not mean that a river is absent.

Greens show lower elevations; tan and brown show higher land, with pale tones toward the highest terrain. Shadows emphasize the slopes. Vertical relief is exaggerated to make landforms easier to read, so the map is not a slope survey. Blue tones distinguish seas from land; the legend is a guide to land elevation, not a chart of water depth.

The relief uses Terrain Tiles, a composite of SRTM, GMTED2010 and ETOPO1 elevation data distributed through the AWS Open Data program. Boundaries, rivers, lakes and feature names come from Natural Earth. These are small-scale educational maps rather than navigation or engineering surveys.

Blank physical map

The blank version keeps the mapped features and removes the place labels. Download it for a geography worksheet or practice identifying the features.

Physical map of Afghanistan without names
Blank version of physical map of afghanistan.PNG 2000×1599 (1.5 MB)Physical map of Afghanistan: blank (PDF A4) (737 KB)

Features and names

ReferenceName or description
Named physical featureParopamisus Mountains
Named physical featureRegistan Desert
Named physical featureDasht-e Margo
Named physical featureShāh Fōlādī
Named physical featureKuh-e Jang Qal'eh
Named physical featureSikaram
Named physical featureNoshaq

Data sources and license

Map design and rendered images: Atlas of Maps, CC BY 4.0. Source databases retain their own licenses; the map license does not replace them.

Also see the political map of Afghanistan, with cities, internal divisions, a location map and printable outline maps.

Frequently asked questions

What does a physical map show?

A physical map shows landforms and water: mountains, plateaus, lowlands, rivers, lakes and seas. This map uses elevation colors and hill shading instead of coloring each country separately.

Can I download physical map of afghanistan without labels?

Yes. The blank relief map retains the terrain, rivers and outlines but removes place names. Both versions are available as PNG and PDF; the PDF uses A4 paper and can be scaled to US Letter.

Use this map

You can download, print and share this map for free, in class, in school projects, in presentations and on websites, as long as you credit the source: Physical map of Afghanistan · Atlas of Maps (atlasofmaps.com), license CC BY 4.0.

More physical maps