Former agency · headquarters Parachinar · largest official town Sadda · 785,434 people in 2023
Kurram is the high valley under Spin Ghar, against the Afghan line. Parachinar is the administrative seat: deputy commissioner, militia lines, the name outsiders already know. The 2023 urban table is awkward. Parachinar town council is printed at only 5,583 people. Sadda town council in Lower Kurram is printed at 39,888. So the headquarters is not the largest counted town. Say both facts. Do not hide one to make a neater sentence.
Turi and Bangash names dominate Upper Kurram talk. Central Kurram is a different set of valley tribes on harder ground toward Hangu and Orakzai. Pashto is the language of the district. The 2018 merger turned the old agency into a KP district. The mountains did not flatten.
PBS 2023: 785,434 people, 94,548 households, area 3,380 km². Urban 45,471 (under 6 percent). Rural 739,963. Literacy 35.22 percent overall — 49.39 percent for men, 20.65 percent for women. Under-tens about 275,000 (35 percent). Sex ratio about 108 men per 100 women.
Eighty-one union councils appear on some local lists. That is councils, not 81 finished village books.
Central Kurram — 1,470 km², 358,670 people, literacy about 21 percent. Largest tehsil, lowest literacy of the three. This is the line a school page should not skip.
Upper Kurram — 970 km², 275,819 people, literacy about 49 percent. Parachinar sits here. Highest literacy of the three, still under half.
Lower Kurram — 940 km², 150,945 people, literacy about 38 percent. Sadda is the municipal town. Smallest population of the three.
Administrator seats for Lower and Central are often described as sitting at Sadda. Upper is run from Parachinar. If a later gazette moves a seat, follow the gazette.
Thall in Hangu district is the usual gate from the Kohat side. When that road is closed, shops in Parachinar and Sadda feel it in days, not months. Pewar / Gawi and other border names exist on the map; this page is not a crossing guide.
Degree colleges are thin compared with Kohat. Students leave for Kohat or Peshawar when they can travel. DHQ Parachinar and the Sadda-side facilities are the first hospitals. Specialist care is a road away. Female literacy at 21 percent is the measure of whether those colleges are reaching the Central tehsil at all.
Sources: PBS 2023 district table; tehsil literacy rows; Table 2 urban rows for Parachinar TC and Sadda TC. September 2026.