Dir was a princely state in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj, located within the North-West Frontier Province. Following the Partition of British India, Dir remained independent and unaligned until February 1948, when the Dominion of Pakistan accepted its accession. The princely state ceased to exist as a distinct political entity in 1969, when it was fully incorporated into Pakistan. The territory it once covered is today located in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, forming two northern and southern districts called Upper Dir and Lower Dir, respectively. Geography Most of the state lay in the valley of the Panjkora river, which originates in the Hindu Kush mountains and joins the Swat River near Chakdara. Apart from small areas in the south-west, Dir is a rugged, mountainous zone with peaks rising to in the north-east and to along the watersheds, with Swat to the east and Afghanistan and Chitral to the west and north. History Early period Dir took its name from its main settlement, Dir, the location of the ruler's palace. The territories surrounding Dir were populated by their current ethnic majority, the Pakhtuns, beginning from the end of the 14th century. The Pakhtun were divided in several clans (khels), often battling one against the other. The three clans which conquered the zone were the Yusafzai (Painda Khel, Sultan Khel, Osakhel, Nasirdinkhel), Tarkanrai. The Dir territory was populated in the 16th century by the Malizai sub-tribe of the Yusufzai, who took control of the zone assimilating or chasing away the previous inhabitants (Dilazak in Bajour, Jandool, Maiden, and Swatis from areas east of Panjkora) and within this tribe the most prominent fractions became the Painda khel and Sultan khel. By the 17th century a section of the Painda khel, coming from the Kohan village in the valley of Nihag (a Panjkora tributary), seized the trade routes with Chitral and Afghanistan. The first ruling khans The princely state is said to have been established in the 17th century as a Muslim khanate by Akhund Baba (also known as Mulla Ilyas), the leader of a Pakhtun clan, and ruled afterwards by his descendants. A member of the Painda Khel's leading family, Mulla Ilyas, was recognized as spiritual leader because of his religious merits, which procured him the title of Akhund ("scholar" in Persian) Baba. Thanks to his charisma, Akhund acquired a prominent position in the Malizai tribe and founded the