Lower Dir is one of the 26 districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The district was formed in 1996, when the district of Dir was divided into Upper Dir and Lower Dir. Timergara city is the district headquarters and largest city. It mainly comprises the terrain drained by the Panjkora River and it’ affluent. Dir takes its name from the name of a village, Dir, which served as capital of the state during the Nawabs era Dir (princely state). It has District Swat in the East, Afghanistan on the West, Upper Dir on North-West and Malakand on the south. Pashto is the main spoken language of the population, followed by Kohistani and Gujri.

River Panjkora

The Panjkora River (Sanskrit) is a river in northern Pakistan. It rises rises high in the Hindu Kush mountains, flows south through Upper Dir and Lower Dir Districts and joins the Swat River near Chakdara, Malakand, khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Its name is derived from the Persian for ‘panj’ (meaning ‘five’) and ‘kora’ (meaning ‘river’).