page_title: Gardez
section_title: Economy and administration
hierarchical_section_title: Gardez / Economy and administration
caption_attribution_description: English: The U.S military’s Forward Operating Base (FOB) Gardez is located to the east of town along the Khost-Gardez Road. Once a Taliban stronghold, Gardez is now a place of relative security and home to the oldest Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the country, established in January 2003. source: http://www.aed.usace.army.mil/Documents/InboundPersonnelRevised.pdf
context_page_description: Gardēz is the capital of the Paktia Province of Afghanistan. The population of the city was estimated to be ca. 10,000 in the 1979 census and was estimated to be 70,000 in 2008. The population is overwhelmingly Pashtun. The city of Gardez is located at the junction between two important roads that cut through a huge alpine valley. Surrounded by the mountains and deserts of the Hindu Kush, which boil up from the valley floor to the north, east and west, it is the axis of commerce for a huge area of eastern Afghanistan and has been a strategic location for armies throughout the country's long history of conflict. Observation posts built by Alexander the Great are still crumbling on the hilltops just outside the city limits.
  the city of Gardez has a population of 70,641. it has 13 districts and a total land area of 6,174 hectares. The total number of dwellings in this city are 7,849.
context_section_description: The city of Gardez is also a major fuel wood market for Kabul. Many of its natural forests are being cut down to provide fuel wood especially during winter.
  During the 1970s, Gardez experienced an economic boom as a result of the German-funded "Paktiā Development Authority", established in 1965, and of the asphalting of the road to Kabul. Social services included three schools for boys, one school for girls, a hospital, one teacher training institute, the Madrasaye Roshānī, two hotels, and forty mosques. Most of these buildings were destroyed during the civil war in the 1980s.
  After the fall of the Taliban, the first Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan was established in Paktiā near Gardez in early March 2003, headed by the US Army along with a U.S. Agency for International Development representative, Randolph Hampton.  There are now over 30 PRTs in Afghanistan.  The continuing challenge to bring electricity, medical clinics, schools and water to the more remote villages in Paktia are a result of ongoing security issues.
caption: Gardez has the first Provincial reconstruction team (PRT)
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