Wakhan (Dari; Pashto: ), also spelt as Vakhan and Vakhon (Tajik: Вахон}, is a rugged, mountainous part of the Pamir Mountains, Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Today most of Wakhan is part of Wakhan District, Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan.

Geography

thumb|upright=1.3|The Wakhan and surrounding areas along the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan

The Wakhan is located in the extreme north-east of Afghanistan. It contains the headwaters of the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, and was an ancient corridor for travelers from the Tarim Basin to Badakshan. The geographic position of Wakhan between China, Hindustan, and Bactria allowed it to play a major role in trade in the ancient world.

Until 1883, Wakhan included the valley of the Panj River and the Pamir River, as well as the upper flows of the Wakhan River. An 1873 agreement between British Raj and the Russian Empire split the Wakhan region by delimiting spheres of influence for the two governments at the Panj and Pamir rivers. Since then, the name Wakhan is now generally used to refer to the Afghan area south of the two rivers. The northern part of the historic Wakhan is now part of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan. There is a gravel road from Ishkashim, passing through Khandud, Qala-i-Panjah, Gazkhan, Sarhad, Bazai Gumbad until it reaches the Wakhjir Pass, which is on the Afghanistan–China border.

The western part of the Wakhan, between Ishkashim and Qala-i-Panjah, is known by some as Lower Wakhan, which includes the valley of the Panj River. The valleys of the Wakhan River, the Pamir River and their tributaries, and the terrain between, are known as Upper Wakhan.

The eastern extremity of Upper Wakhan is known as the Pamir Knot, the area where the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges meet. West of the Pamir Knot is the Little Pamir, a broad U-shaped grassy valley long and wide, which contains the Chaqmaqtin Lake, the headwaters of the Aksu or Murghab River. At the eastern end of the Little Pamir is the Tegermansu Valley, from where the closed Tegermansu Pass () leads to China. The Great Pamir or Big Pamir, a long valley south of the Zorkul Lake, drained by the Pamir River, lies to the northwest of the Little Pamir.

The mountain range that divides the two Pamirs is known as the Nicholas Range. West of the Nicholas Range, between the Great Pamir and the lower valley of the Wakhan River, is the Wakhan Range, which culminates in the Koh-e Pamir ().

The roads in the region have small shrines to Ismaili Muslim pirs and are adorned with "special stones and curled ibex and sheep horns", which are symbols of purity in the Zoroastrian faiths, once present in the region before the arrival of Islam.

Wakhan Corridor

thumb|upright=1.25|Wakhan between Afghanistan and Tajikistan

The Wakhan is connected to Tashkurgan Tajik County, China, by a long, narrow strip called the Wakhan Corridor, which separates the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan.

The Wakhan River flows through the corridor from the east to Qala-i-Panjah where it joins the Pamir River to become the Panj River which then forms the larger Amu Darya River.

In the south the corridor is bordered by the high mountains of the Hindu Kush, crossed by the Broghil Pass, the Irshad Pass and the disused Dilisang Pass to Pakistan.

History

Historically, the Wakhan has been an important region for thousands of years as it is where the western and eastern portions of Central Asia meet.

Ancient history

Western Wakhan (休密 Xiumi) is believed to have been conquered in the early part of the 1st century CE by Kujula Kadphises, the first "Great Kushan," and was one of the five xihou or principalities that formed the nucleus of the original Kushan kingdom. Wakhan was administered by the Kushan indirectly through semi-independent rulers who oversaw trade on the Buddhist Route of the Silk Road. It was a tributary to Badakhshan, which itself was a tributary state of Qing China. However, in the 1750s when the Qing dynasty conquered the Dzungar Khanate, Wakhan and Shighnan were incorporated into the Qing dynasty. many Wakhis were also forced to migrate to Hunza and Sarikol following the acquisition of Wakhan by Afghans.

Modern history

In 1949, when Mao Zedong completed the Communist takeover of China, the borders were permanently closed, sealing off the 2,000-year-old caravan route and turning the corridor into a cul-de-sac. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they occupied Afghanistan's Wakhan and built military posts at Sarhad and elsewhere. To facilitate access they built a bridge across the Pamir River at Prip, near Gazkhan. However, the area did not see fighting.

In 2010 Wakhan was reported to be peaceful and unaffected by the war in the rest of Afghanistan.

Demographics

thumb|A local villager in the Wakhan District of Afghanistan

Wakhan is sparsely populated. The total population is estimated at 18,000 residents. Wakhi and Kyrgyz are the major ethnic groups of Wakhan. Its inhabitants are fluent in both Dari and Wakhi language. Nomadic Kyrgyz herders traditionally live at the higher altitudes.

According to a 2003 report by the United Nations Environment Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization, the population of Wakhan suffers from lack of education, poverty, ill health, food insecurity and opium addiction. He has also covered the Pamir Festival in the area.

Kyrgyz

The Kyrgyz population of Wakhan was 1,130 in 2003, all in the eastern part of Wakhan. In 1978 almost all the Kyrgyz inhabitants fled to Pakistan in the aftermath of the Saur Revolution. They requested 5,000 visas from the United States Consulate in Peshawar for resettlement in Alaska (a region that shares a similar climate and temperature with the Wakhan Corridor). Their request was denied. In the meantime, the heat and the unsanitary conditions of the refugee camp were killing the Kyrgyz refugees at an alarming rate. Turkey, which was then under the military coup rule of General Kenan Evren, stepped in, and resettled the entire group in the Lake Van region of Turkey in 1982. The village of Ulupamir (or "Great Pamir" in Kyrgyz) in Erciş on Lake Van was given to them, and more than 5,000 of them still reside today. The documentary film "37 Uses for a Dead Sheep – the story of the Pamir Kirghiz" was based on the life of these Kyrgyz/Kirgiz in their new home.

Kyrgyz from Wakhan region of Afghanistan moved to Pakistan in the 1970s. Nearly 1,100 of them were accepted by Turkey to settle in Ulupamir (or "Great Pamir" in Kyrgyz), their resettlement village in Van Province.

Some Kyrgyz returned to the Wakhan in October 1979, following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. BBC correspondent John Simpson has recommended the area as a place to take a wonderful, and relatively safe, holiday. Kate Humble, a BBC television presenter, reports that the area is beautiful and the people friendly. The entire Wakhan was designated as the protected Wakhan National Park in 2014.

The Wakhan plays a large role in Greg Mortenson's book, Stones into Schools. This book tells the story of the building of a school in the Kyrgyz village of Bazai Gumbad. The factual accuracy of this account is strongly disputed in Jon Krakauer's ebook Three Cups of Deceit.

Footnotes

References

  • Gordon, T. E. 1876. The Roof of the World: Being the Narrative of a Journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian Frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir. Edinburgh. Edmonston and Douglas. Reprint: Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company. Taipei. 1971.
  • Kokaisl, Petr. The lifestyles and changes in culture of Afghan Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan. Asian Ethnicity. 2013, vol. 14, issue 4, pages 407–433. . Online
  • Shahrani, M. Nazif. (1979) The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War.
  • Munshi Abdur Rahim. Journey to Badakhshan with Report on Wakhan and Badakhshan. 1885. [https://mahraka.com/pdf/munshiAbdulRahimBadakhshan.pdf]
  • Stein, Aurel M. 1921a. Serindia: Detailed report of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China, 5 vols. London & Oxford. Clarendon Press. Reprint: Delhi. Motilal Banarsidass. 1980. [http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/]
  • Stein Aurel M. 1921. "A Chinese expedition across the Pamirs and Hindukush, A.D. 747". Indian Antiquary 1923. From: www.pears2.lib.Ohio-state.edu/ FULLTEXT/TR-ENG/aurel.htm. Last modified 24 June 1997. Retrieved 13 January 1999.
  • Stein Aurel M. 1928. Innermost Asia: Detailed report of explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran, 5 vols. Clarendon Press. Reprint: New Delhi. Cosmo Publications. 1981.
  • Stein Aurel M. 1929. On Alexander's Track to the Indus: Personal Narrative of Explorations on the North-west Frontier of India. London. Reprint, New York, Benjamin Blom, 1972.
  • Photo Essay on Afghan Kyrgyz in Wakhan and on the group Kyrgyz that migrated to Turkey from the Wakhan
  • Aga Khan Development Network: Wakhan and the Afghan Pamir (2010)
  • Juldu.com Photos and Online guide to trekking in the Wakhan and Afghan Pamir
  • Wakhan Development Partnership A project working to improve the lives of the people of Wakhan since 2003
  • Wakhan Corridor Photos from Afghan Wakhan Corridor
  • Little Pamir Photos of Life of Kirghiz in Afghanistan's Little Pamir
  • Photos From Afghanistan: Natural Beauty, Not War – slideshow by NPR
  • [http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=504942] Ride Report of two Polish motorcyclists who rode to Wakhan from Poland in 2009
  • Wong, Edward. "In Icy Tip of Afghanistan, War Seems Remote." The New York Times. 27 October 2010.
  • Portfolio of images from summer 2010 trek through the Afghan Pamir by Zygmunt Korytkowski, photographer and traveller.
  • Photos from the Wakhan Corridor Albums mainly from the Eastern part of Wakhan (Big and Little Pamir) inhabited by Kirghiz nomads.
  • Polish Climbing Expedition "Afghanistan 2010"
  • Climbing in the Wakhan Corridor
  • Caravanistan.com Wakhan corridor

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