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Chihilsitoon Garden, a 12.5-hectare public site, is Kabul’s largest historic public garden.  Based on the successful rehabilitation and sustainable operation of Babur’s Garden, in 2015 the Aga Khan Trust for Culture commenced a multi-year rehabilitation programme in Chihilsitoon Garden with the intention of providing high-quality public spaces for social and cultural interaction, educational programming, and sport and recreational activities.  The Garden rehabilitation was completed in September 2018.

The Garden rehabilitation is a collaboration between the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the Government of Afghanistan and German Federal Foreign Offive/KfW.  Heavily damaged in 1979-1980, the site remained unused and neglected in the years that followed.  The landscape of the site, which contains extensive vegetation including mature evergreen trees, continues to be used by the general public for basic recreational and sports activities and forms one of the most important public gardens in the city even in its dilapidated condition.

The Aga Khan Trust for Culture rehabilitated the Garden and Palace and invested in upgrading improvements and training initiatives, in the wider neighbourhood surrounding the Garden, to underpin the revitalisation and long-term sustainability of the site and ensure an equitable distribution of resources through the upgrading of drainage, improvements in access and socio-economic training programmes that improve environmental conditions and livelihoods.

Now complete, the rehabilitated Chihilsitoon Garden provides users with high-quality landscapes and building spaces capable of containing and promoting the rich and diverse forms of social, cultural and economic expression manifested in Afghanistan.