Dir is a town in Upper Dir District

Upper Dir District

Upper Dir is one the 24 districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. The district was formed in 1996, when Dir District was divided into Upper Dir and Lower Dir.-Location:...

, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. It is sometimes known as Dir Proper or Khas Dir to distinguish it from the district. It lies at the foot of the Lowarai Pass, the main motor road to Chitral

Chitral

Chitral or Chetrar , translated as field in the native language Khowar, is the capital of the Chitral District, situated on the western bank of the Kunar River , in Pakistan. The town is at the foot of Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, high...

, on the Dir River, a tributary of the Panjkora River

Panjkora River

The Panjkora River is a river in northern Pakistan. It rises rises high in the Hindu Kush at lat. 35.45, flows south through Upper Dir and Lower Dir Districts and joins the Swat River near Chakdara, Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Its name is derived from the Persian for 'panj' and 'kora' ....

.

Dir was founded in the 17th century. It was the capital of the former princely state of Dir, until its abolition in 1969. The former royal palace is on a hill above the town. Dir was then the capital of Dir District

Dir District

Dir District was a district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan between 1970 and 1996. It was part of Malakand Division.Dir District was created in 1970 after the princely state of Dir was abolished the year before. Dir District was 5,280 square kilometres in area and lay along the...

, but was replaced as capital by Timergara

Timergara

Timergara is a town in Lower Dir District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Timergara is the district headquarters of Lower Dir. It lies at an altitude of ....

, before the district was divided in 1996.

Climate

Like most of the southern slopes of Pakistan, Dir has a humid subtropical climate

Humid subtropical climate

A humid subtropical climate is a climate zone characterized by hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters...

 (Köppen

Köppen climate classification

The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...

 Cfa). Owing to the town’s exposed location, rainfall from frontal cyclones from the west is heavier than in any other part of Pakistan, and their passage, as well as very penetrative monsoon

Monsoon

Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...

al periods, are usually accompanies by heavy thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...

s.