Jowzjān or Jōzjān or Jawzjan (Persian: جوزجان) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the north of the country. Its capital is Sheberghan.

The population of the province was around 485.300 people. The major ethnic groups living in Jowzjan are Uzbeks and Turkmens followed by Tajiks, Pashtuns and Arabs. Turkmeni is spoken by the largest population (66.7%). Uzbeki comes second with 30.2% of population. Pashto and Persian are spoken respectively by 1.0% and 2.1% of the total population. The Arabs of Jowzjan do not speak Arabic but either Pashto or Dari Persian as their mother tongue.

Jowzjan Province is situated in the Northern part of Afghanistan, bordering Turkmenistan in the north, Balkh Province in the east, Sar-e Pol Province in the south and Faryab Province in the west. The province covers an area of 10326 km2. More than one quarter of the province is mountainous or semi mountainous terrain (29.4%) while more than two thirds of the area is made up of flat land (68.9%).

Sharbat Gula (Pashto: شربت ګله) (pronounced [ˈʃaɾbat]) (born ca. 1972) is an Afghan woman who was the subject of a famous photograph by journalist Steve McCurry. Gula was living as a refugee in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed. The image brought her recognition when it was featured on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine at a time when she was approximately 12 years old. Gula was known throughout the world simply as "the Afghan Girl" until she was formally identified in early 2002. The photograph has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa and is sometimes popularly referred to as "the Afghan Mona Lisa".^{[unreliable source?]}

Pashtun by ethnicity, Gula was orphaned during the Soviet Union's bombing of Afghanistan and sent to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984. Her village was attacked by Soviet helicopter gunships sometime in the early 1980s. The Soviet strike killed her parents — forcing her, her siblings and grandmother to hike over the mountains to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in neighboring Pakistan.^{[unreliable source?]}