, an important city in ancient and mediaeval times, now a village, located in what is today northern Afg̲h̲ānistān, ca. 67° E. Long. (Greenw.) and 36° 45´ N. lat. It was located on the Balk̲h̲ river, now dry.

Ancient Bactria was the name of a province of the Achaemenid Empire as well as its chief city. In the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius we find the form Bāxtriš, in the Avesta Bāχδī, and in Greek Βάπτρα. Perhaps the original form. was *Bāχdrī, from the name of the river (cf. Markwart, Catalogue , 34). Balk̲h̲ after the conquests of Alexander the Great was a centre of the Greco…