Rank 93, reaching 26 destinations, near the bottom of every world index. In practice nearly every journey requires a visa obtained in advance, including to neighbouring countries, refusal rates are very high, and many embassies in Kabul have been closed since 2021, so lodging an application requires first travelling to a third country — for which a visa is needed. It is a closed loop.

Because they count the destinations the booklet can enter, not whether the person holding it may leave the house. In Afghanistan two people of the same nationality holding the same passport at the same rank 93 still have different actual ability to travel depending on gender, since women are restricted from long-distance travel without a male relative. No ranking in the world measures that.

No, and naturalisation is not a realistic route for foreigners either. If anyone offers Afghan citizenship or an Afghan passport in any form, stop immediately — in the present context any such transaction is gravely suspect.

A narrow strip running east connecting Afghanistan to the Chinese border. It did not form naturally but was drawn in the late nineteenth century under arrangements between the British and Russian empires, to create a buffer so the two empires' territories would not directly adjoin. It is among the world's clearest examples of a border drawn for a third party's benefit.

Geological surveys record large deposits of copper, iron ore, rare earths and lithium. But deposits underground are not wealth until they can be extracted, transported and sold — Afghanistan is landlocked, road and power infrastructure are very limited, and the security and legal environment does not permit large-scale mining investment. It is the more severe version of the Turkmenistan lesson: not merely lacking a route to market but lacking the conditions to begin.

Bamiyan was a major Buddhist centre with two colossal Buddha figures carved into a cliff from the sixth century, destroyed in 2001; the site remains a UNESCO World Heritage site in danger. Bamiyan and the Gandhara region in present-day Pakistan belonged to the same ancient Buddhist world, where Buddhism spread from India into Central Asia and then along the Silk Road into China and from there to Vietnam.

It is among the largest and longest-standing refugee populations in the world, with departures in successive waves since the late 1970s. Pakistan and Iran have been the largest hosts, each holding millions over decades, and many people were born and raised entirely in the host country without holding its nationality — some families are now in a third generation.

Because the whole site is built on the idea that a better passport opens more options, and understanding the lower end of the scale is a condition of understanding what the numbers at the top mean. Afghanistan is a reminder of the other side: the people who most need one more option are very nearly the people with no way to obtain it.