1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Afghanistan
Compare this sourced profile of Herat, Afghanistan before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Herat—574,300, Asia/Kabul, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: capital of Herat Province, Afghanistan.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Herat is GeoNames ID 1140026. Its recorded administrative path is Herat District → Herat → Afghanistan, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Herāt occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-13; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Herat ranks 971 by recorded population. Inside the 4 selected Afghanistan entries it ranks 2; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 523. Its 574,300 population value is 1.05 times the 548,800 median for the country cohort and 0.57 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Herat is rank 2 among the 4 selected Afghanistan entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Herat's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Herat's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Mashhad at 319.966 km with 2,307,177 recorded people; Kandahar at 446.811 km with 523,300 recorded people; Mazār-e Sharīf at 516.064 km with 523,300 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 196.098 km. Compared with Mashhad, Herat's recorded population is 0.25 times as large. Against Herat, Mashhad follows Razavi Khorasan → Iran in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Iran cohort rather than Afghanistan, uses Asia/Tehran instead of Asia/Kabul, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Herat's. Against Herat, Kandahar follows Kandahar District → Kandahar → Afghanistan in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Afghanistan cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kabul identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Herat's. Against Herat, Mazār-e Sharīf follows Mazar-e Sharif → Balkh → Afghanistan in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Afghanistan cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kabul identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Herat's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,125 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Herat's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1140026, the coordinate pair 34.3482 / 62.1997, country rank 2 of 4, and neighbor GeoNames 124665 at 319.966 km bind Herat to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Herat's reference point is 34.3482° north and 62.1997° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Kabul is shared by 4 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Herat's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Herat's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Herat's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Herat, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Herat's closest other entries in this atlas are Mashhad (319.966 km), Kandahar (446.811 km), Mazār-e Sharīf (516.064 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Herat, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-13; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.