Headquarters Saidu Sharif · Largest city Mingora · Seven tehsils in the 2023 tables · Population 2,687,384
Swat is the long green valley of the Swat River, from the hot fields near Barikot up to the snow line at Kalam. People outside KP still call it the Switzerland of Pakistan. People who live here call the lower town Mingora, the old seat Saidu Sharif, and the rest by tehsil: Kabal, Matta, Khwaza Khela, Charbagh, Bahrain.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics 2023 counted 2,687,384 people in 381,212 households. About 794,000 of them are urban; the rest are rural. Literacy is 48.13 percent overall — 61.83 percent for men, 33.95 percent for women. Pashto is the mother tongue of about 2.48 million. Kohistani languages (Torwali, Kalami and related speech of the upper valley) are recorded in the tens of thousands. Area of the old district is 5,337 square kilometres.
Swat was a princely state until 1969. In late 2025 the provincial cabinet notified a split: lower tehsils staying as Swat (headquarters Gulkada / Babuzai) and upper tehsils as Bar Swat (headquarters Matta). This page still follows the 2023 seven-tehsil census table, because that is the last full PBS count. When the Bureau prints two separate district books, the atlas should split with it.
Bahrain / Madyan and Khwaza Khela are the next names you hear on a bus going up-valley.
Local government papers speak of about 65 union councils (56 rural, 9 urban) and, under the later village-council system, about 170 village councils and 44 neighbourhood councils. That is why nobody can honestly paste “all villages of Swat” on one screen. What follows are names that already sit on council lists, maps and school papers.
Mingora, Saidu Sharif, Gulkada, Odigram (Udegram), Manglawar, Sangota, Islampur, Panjigram, Qambar, Faizabad neighbourhoods of the city belt.
Kabal, Kanju, Kanju Township, Kuza Bandai, Bara Bandai, Aligrama, Sirsinai (Sirsanai), Hazara / Maloch, Gul Jaba, Kabal Chindakhwara, Ningolai, Dherai, Taghma, Deolai.
Barikot, Ghalegay / Ghaligay, Shamozo, Manyar, and the villages on the old road that drops toward the Malakand pass. Barikot is also the archaeological name for the ancient town on this bank of the river.
Charbagh, Gulibagh, and the compact union councils between Mingora and Khwaza Khela on the east-bank road.
Khwaza Khela, Fatehpur, Shin, Miandam, and the side valleys that climb toward Malam Jabba.
Matta town, Gwalerai, Sakhra, Asharay, Bara Drushkhela, Kuza Drushkhela, Darmai, Rahat Kot, Kalakot, Peochar, Shawar, Sijbanr, Arkot, Shangowati, Jorra, Sherplam, Barthana, Aghal, Chinglalai, Venai.
Bahrain, Madyan, Kalam, Utror, Gabral, Mankyal, Kedam, Chail, Bashigram, Matiltan, Balakot (Swat), Ayeen, Aryane, Peshmal side settlements on the Kalam road. This is Swat Kohistan. Winter closes tracks that Mingora never sees.
Other names that appear on public photo and map lists: Malam Jabba, Fizagat on the river, Marghazar above Saidu, and the Buddhist sites at Butkara and Shingardar near the lower towns. Spellings jump (Bahrain / Behrain, Khwaza Khela / Khawaza Khela, Kuza Bandai / Koza Bandai). Both forms are the same place.
University of Swat, the women’s campus, Swat Medical College, University of Agriculture Swat, and Government Postgraduate Jahanzeb College are the names students actually use. Government degree colleges sit in Saidu Sharif and the tehsil towns. The female literacy number — just under 34 percent — is the line that should stay on this page even when the tourism paragraphs get longer.
Saidu Group of Hospitals / the teaching cluster in Saidu Sharif is the main public referral. Private hospitals crowd Mingora. From Kalam or Peochar an ambulance still measures the trip in hours, not minutes.
Lower Swat farms wheat, maize, orchards and off-season vegetables. Upper Swat sells timber, potatoes and the tourist season. Hotels from Fizagat to Kalam are a winter-and-summer economy. After the flood years, many of those rooms had to be rebuilt. The river is the reason people come and the reason roads wash out.
Kanju (Saidu Sharif) airport is a short drive from Mingora. When flights run, they change the weekend crowd. When they do not, the road through Malakand is the only gate most families use.
The Miangul house is the old state name. Miangul Abdul Wadud and Miangul Abdul Haq Jahan Zeb were the Walis. Jahanzeb College is the campus that still carries the second name. Miangul Aurangzeb and later members of the same family stayed in public life after the state ended in 1969.
Politics and law. Afzal Khan Lala. Mahmood Khan, former chief minister of KP. Murad Saeed. Nasirul Mulk, former Chief Justice of Pakistan, is listed from this valley. Those are assembly and court names, not a party poster.
School and the world’s name. Malala Yousafzai of Mingora, Nobel Peace Prize 2014. Ziauddin Yousafzai, her father, the school man. That chapter is already known. It does not need a second telling here.
Pashto verse and radio. Laiq Zada Laiq. Parvesh Shaheen. Rahim Shah Rahim. Fazal Rabi Rahi. Ibrahim Shabnam. Zubair Torwali works on Torwali speech in the upper valley. These are the literature names Swat notes already print.
Showbiz. Nazia Iqbal, Pashto singer. Ghazala Javed, Pashto singer, killed in 2012. Rahim Shah, singer. Badar Munir, film actor. They are the screen and cassette names. Ghazala’s murder is public record. This page names it. It does not turn it into a plot.
Sport. Anwar Ali and Ihsanullah — first-class and international cricket names tied to Swat in current lists.
It will not list 170 village councils as if they were 170 complete household registers. It will not pretend the 2025 split already has two finished PBS books. It will not write tourism slogans in place of the literacy table. Add a kally name when you live there. That is how Buner was written and how Swat should grow.
Sources: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics 2023 district and tehsil tables; PILDAT Swat district profile; KP local-government village-council annexes; named-settlement and municipal council lists in the public record. Last checked August 2026.