Old headquarters Wana · split on 13 April 2022 into Lower and Upper districts · 888,675 people in the 2023 combined count
South Waziristan is the southern Wazir and Mehsud country against the Afghan line, west of Tank and DI Khan. Wana was the agency headquarters. Makeen, Ladha and Sararogha sit in the Mehsud highlands. Barmal and Toi Khulla sit toward the south-west. For a century this was one agency. On 13 April 2022 the province cut it into Lower South Waziristan (Wana side) and Upper South Waziristan (Spinkai Ragzai / Makeen–Ladha side). Students still search the old name. This page keeps that name and prints both new districts under it.
Ahmadzai Wazirs are the Wana names. Mehsuds are the Makeen and Ladha names. Pashto is the language of the 2023 sheet — about 871,000 speakers in the combined compilation. The whole count printed rural. Wana is a bazaar and a fort town anyway.
Combined households about 179,000. Combined population 888,675. Literacy in the combined write-up about 32 percent — roughly 43 percent for men and 20 percent for women. Under-tens about 296,000. Sex ratio about 107 men per 100 women. That is the book for the land people still call South Waziristan. Separate district books after 2022 will keep splitting the same people.
Wana — 2,315 km², 184,645 people, literacy about 31.3 percent. Old headquarters. Largest land on this side.
Birmil (Barmal) — 923 km², 112,757 people, literacy about 23.1 percent.
Toi Khulla — 567 km², 102,835 people, literacy about 7.8 percent. Lowest printed literacy on either side of the split.
Shakai appears as a further tehsil title. A full 2023 line for it is thin in the same extract.
Sararogha — 813 km², 145,118 people, literacy about 35.1 percent. Largest count on this side.
Ladha — 289 km², 108,344 people, literacy about 48.0 percent.
Makeen (Makin) — 404 km², 66,042 people, literacy about 48.7 percent. Highest literacy of the printed Upper rows.
Tiarza — 734 km², 65,798 people, literacy about 27.3 percent.
Sarwakai — 398 km², 58,804 people, literacy about 37.7 percent.
Shaktoi — 177 km², 44,332 people, literacy about 32.9 percent.
Shawal is an extra high-country title without a full row in the same table.
After 2001 this agency became one of the places Pakistani officials named when they talked about Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and allied factions. Baitullah Mehsud and later TTP leaders were publicly tied to the Mehsud country. Wana had its own armed chapters. Foreign fighters used the same ridges in those years. This page records the names the state used. It does not map a hideout or explain a tactic.
Civilians in this agency, and civilians in DI Khan, Tank and Peshawar, paid for that chapter. Schools closed. Markets emptied. Funerals filled both the high valleys and the settled towns.
The large named campaign here was Rah-e-Nijat, announced in June 2009, aimed at the Mehsud belt around Makeen and Ladha. Official statements described it as a clearance of listed groups. Families were told to leave. They went down to Tank, DI Khan and beyond — the same pattern North Waziristan later repeated toward Bannu in 2014. Camp life, missed school years, livestock sold cheap, houses found broken on return: that is the civilian file. Later years brought further named actions under wider KP and FATA operations. Victory statements in 2009–10 did not mean the district stayed quiet. Attacks and further raids continued into the 2020s on both sides of the 2022 split.
Wana and Makeen are not the same political story. Treating every Wazir and every Mehsud household as a combatant is the error outsiders keep making. The 2023 census is mostly children and village houses.
Rah-e-Nijat produced one of the first giant IDP waves from the agencies into the settled districts. Registration points and camps around Tank and DI Khan took the weight. Return was staged, argued, and incomplete in some valleys for years. Compensation schemes existed on paper. Families still compare what was promised with what was paid. A rebuilt school in Ladha and an empty classroom in Toi Khulla can sit in the same year.
After the 2018 merger the agency became a district, then two districts. A deputy commissioner and a police line replaced the political agent on paper. The road from Wana to DI Khan still decides whether a teacher arrives on Monday.
Cadet College Wana and scattered government colleges are the degree names. Most professional seats still mean a journey to DI Khan. DHQ-level care at Wana and the Makeen–Ladha side is the demand of the new districts. Female literacy near 20 percent overall, and under 8 percent in Toi Khulla, is the education fact. A girls’ school that stays open after a raid year is the test.
Sources: PBS 2023 combined and tehsil rows; 13 April 2022 bifurcation notification; public record of Rah-e-Nijat (June 2009) and later official statements. September 2026.