The 'Durand Line' is a border demarcation that separates which of the following countries ?

Correct — B, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is the boundary agreed in 1893 between Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, then foreign secretary of the Government of India, and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan, and it separated Afghanistan from the tribal belt and settled districts of British India's North-West Frontier. When British India was partitioned in 1947 the line passed to Pakistan, and it has been the Afghanistan-Pakistan boundary ever since. It runs from the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor in the north-east down to the tri-junction with Iran in the south-west, cutting through Pashtun and Baloch country and dividing communities on both sides — which is why successive Afghan governments have declined to accept it as a settled international boundary, while Pakistan treats it as one. It has never touched India: after 1947 India ceased to share any boundary with Afghanistan except through the part of Jammu and Kashmir that India claims and does not administer. Note also who each of the other candidate lines belongs to, because examiners rotate them — Radcliffe divided India from Pakistan in 1947, McMahon fixed the boundary between India and Tibet in 1914, and the Afghanistan-Iran boundary in Sistan was settled by British arbitration under Goldsmid and later McMahon, not by Durand.

• (a)Afghanistan and Iran — That western boundary runs through Sistan and was fixed by British arbitration awards in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Durand's agreement was with the eastern frontier of Afghanistan.
• (c)India and Pakistan — That is the Radcliffe Line, drawn in 1947 by Sir Cyril Radcliffe. The Durand Line predates it by more than half a century.
• (d)Afghanistan and China — Afghanistan touches China only along the short eastern tip of the Wakhan Corridor, and that stretch was settled by a boundary treaty in 1963. The Durand Line runs south of the Corridor, not east of it.

The Durand Line is a product of the Great Game. Britain wanted a defined limit to Afghan authority on the eastern side and a buffer against Russian expansion, and the 1893 agreement drew one on the map, leaving Afghanistan a landlocked state and placing much of the Pashtun population on the British side. The Wakhan Corridor — the narrow finger of Afghan territory running north-east to touch China — was created out of the same settlement so that the Russian and British empires would nowhere meet directly.

Colonial boundary lines named after the official who drew them are a standing question type, and the safest way to hold them is by pairing each name with a date and a purpose. Durand 1893 is Afghanistan and British India, inherited by Pakistan. Radcliffe 1947 is India and Pakistan, and India and East Pakistan. McMahon 1914 is India and Tibet, drawn at the Simla Convention. Also worth carrying is the political fact behind the Durand Line, because it explains recurring news: Afghanistan has never formally accepted it, and the boundary cuts through the Pashtun homeland, which is the source of the long-running argument over the frontier districts. As of the 2025 exam the line remains disputed in Afghan eyes and settled in Pakistani ones, and clashes along it are periodic.

• The Durand Line was agreed on 12 November 1893 between Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan.
• It became the Afghanistan-Pakistan boundary when British India was partitioned in 1947.
• It runs from the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor in the north-east to the tri-junction with Iran in the south-west.
• Afghanistan has never formally recognised it as a settled international boundary; Pakistan treats it as one.
• The Wakhan Corridor was created in the same period as a buffer so that Russian and British territory would not meet.

• Reading 'Durand' as an India-Pakistan line because it was negotiated by an official of the Government of India; the line was inherited by Pakistan in 1947.
• Placing the Afghanistan-China boundary on the Durand Line. That short stretch at the tip of the Wakhan Corridor was settled separately in 1963.
• Mixing up the Durand Line with the Durand Cup, the football tournament named after the same official.

As a direct which-countries item like this one, as a match between named lines and the pairs of countries they divide, or as a map-based identification.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Radcliffe Line forms the boundary between which of the following?

  • (a)Afghanistan and Pakistan
  • (b)India and Pakistan
  • (c)India and China
  • (d)India and Myanmar

  Answer(b) India and Pakistan — drawn in 1947 by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who also divided Bengal, creating the boundary with what was then East Pakistan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Durand Line was agreed in which one of the following years?

  • (a)1857
  • (b)1893
  • (c)1914
  • (d)1947

  Answer(b) 1893 — the agreement between Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. 1914 is the McMahon Line and 1947 the Radcliffe Line.