Pashto is spoken by an estimated 45-60 million people, the majority in Pakistan.
Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in India, Tajikistan, and northeastern Iran (primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border)
 In 1936  a royal decree of Zahir Shah formally granted Pashto the status of an official language, with full rights to use in all aspects of government and education  despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian

