Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is one of the four administrative provinces of Pakistan, located in the northwestern region of the country along the International border with Afghanistan.
The Hindu Kush Dari-Persian: هندوکش ) is an 800-kilometre-long (500 mi) mountain range that stretches through Afghanistan, from its centre to Northern Pakistan and into Tajikistan.
Gilgit is the capital city of Gilgit-Baltistan, a territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The city is located in a broad valley near the confluence of the Gilgit River and Hunza River. Gilgit is a major tourist destination in Pakistan, and serves as a hub for trekking and mountaineering expeditions in the Karakoram Range.
Tirich Mir is the highest mountain of the Hindu Kush range, and the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas-Karakoram range, located in Chitral District of Pakistan. The mountain was first climbed on 21 July 1950 by a Norwegian expedition consisting of Arne Næss, P. Kvernberg, H. Berg, and Tony Streather. Tirich Mir overlooks Chitral town, and can be easily seen from the main bazaar. It is the closest mountain to Aconcagua which is higher than Aconcagua, and thus determines Aconcagua's topographic isolation.
Chitral District is the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, covering an area of 14,850 km². Part of the Malakand Division, it is the northernmost district of Pakistan. It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Kunar, Badakshan and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan to the north and west, and with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa districts of Swat and Dir to the south. A narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north.
Ghizer District is the westernmost part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.Ghizer is the biggest district in Gilgit-Baltistan. Its capital is Gahkuch. Ghizer is a crossroads between Gilgit and Chitral via Shandur Pass, and also to China and Tajikistan via the Broghil Pass through Ishkomen Valley. Ghizer is a multi-ethnic district and three major languages are spoken: Shina, Khowar, and Burushaski. There are also Wakhi speakers in Ishkoman and some Tajiks.
Lowari Pass, or Lowari Top, is a high mountain pass that connects Chitral with Dir in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Lowari Top is a relatively low pass, by far the lowest pass to enter Chitral, the rest all being 12,000 to 15,000 feet.
Dir was a small Muslim princely state in a subsidiary alliance with British India within the Northwest Frontier Province until August 1947 when the British left the subcontinent. For some months it was unaligned, until February 1948, when its accession to the new Dominion of Pakistan was accepted.
Chitral was a princely state in alliance with British India until 1947, then a princely state of Pakistan until 1969. The area of the state now forms the Chitral District of the Malakand Division, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Sir George Scott Robertson, was a British soldier, author, and administrator who was best known for his arduous journey to the remote and rugged region of Kafiristan in what is now northeastern Afghanistan and for his overall command of British Empire forces during the Siege of Chitral. He chronicled his Kafiristan experience in the book The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Some have suggested that Robertson's year-long expedition and subsequent book provided background and inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King". However, Kipling's work was originally published in 1888, predating Robertson's travels to the region.
The Kho or Chitrali people are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group associated with the Dardistan region. They speak Khowar, which is a member of the Dardic subgroup of the Indo-Aryan language family. Many Kho people live in the Chitral, Ghizer and Gilgit-Baltistan districts of Pakistan.
The Kalasha, or Kalash, also called Waigali or Wai, are a Dardic Indo-Aryan indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalasha language, from the Dardic family of the Indo-Aryan branch. They are considered unique among the people of Pakistan. They are also considered to be Pakistan's smallest ethnoreligious group, practising a religion which some authors characterise as a form of animism, while academics classify it as "a form of ancient Hinduism".
The Gilgit Scouts was a paramilitary force of the Gilgit Agency in the northern Jammu and Kashmir. They were raised from the local populations of the Gilgit Agency in 1913, and commanded by British officers. In November 1947, under the command of Major W. A. Brown, they overthrew the Governor of the Jammu and Kashmir state, and declared accession to Pakistan. Colonel Aslam Khan took over the command of the force on behalf of the Government of Azad Kashmir and conquered Skardu, leading to the eventual formation of Gilgit-Baltistan which continues to be under Pakistani control. The force was continued till 1975 when it was integrated into the Northern Light Infantry of the Pakistan Army.
The Katoor Dynasty is a dynasty, which along with its collateral branches ruled the sovereign, later princely state of Chitral and its neighbours in the eastern Hindu Kush region for over 450 years, from around 1570 until 1947. At the height its power under Mehtar Aman ul-Mulk the territory controlled by the dynasty extended from Asmar in the Kunar Valley to Sher Qilla in the Gilgit valley. The Mehtar of Chitral was an influential player in the power politics of the region as he acted as an intermediary between the rulers of Badakhshan, the Yousafzai pashtuns, the Maharaja of Kashmir and later the Amir of Afghanistan.
Langlands School and College, in Chitral, North-West Pakistan, formerly known as Sayurj Public School, was the first community based public school controlled under the district administration in the remote district.In the beginning the school was managed and controlled by the board of governors and the deputy commissioner of the district the deputy commissioner was also chairmen of the board of governors.but still the status of the school is not clear .Today it educates about a thousand pupils, aged from four to eighteen, on four separate sites in and above the town of Chitral. More than a third of the pupils are girls, and the school has a record of academic excellence. The best students have gone on to scholarships in Lahore, doctorates in Australia and exchange programmes in America. Although private, school fees are very low, even by local standards.
Garam Chashma is one of the many branch valleys of Chitral District, situated in the extreme north-west of Pakistan. It is one of the highest human settlements in the Hindu Kush ranges with an altitude of almost 2550 meters. The place is known for Hot spring, which is one of the tourists attraction sites. It is also famous for its trout fish. The water flowing down through the length of the valley is famous for fishing sport. The Lotkoh River running down from the lofty peaks of the Hindu Kush is a heaven for the brown type of trout fish. Other features of the area include snow-covered peaks, pleasant weather, natural springs, and more recently has remained in the limelights for being a potential site of hydel-power generation. Besides tourists, people suffering from skin diseases also visit the hot spring for treatment. It is located in the North-West of Chitral at a distance of about forty-five kilometres by road. It shares international borders with Afghanistan being situated in the extreme North-West of Pakistan. Dorāh Pass connects this part of Pakistan with Badakhshan, the adjacent province of Afghanistan.
Masood Ul Mulk TI is a leading Pakistani expert on humanitarian aid and a renowned development practitioner. He is the CEO of SRSP the largest NGO working to alleviate poverty in North-West Pakistan.
Geoffrey Douglas Langlands CMG, MBE, HI, SPk was a British educationalist who spent most of his life teaching in and leading schools in Pakistan, instructing many of the country's elite. In World War II he served as a Major in the British Army, and afterwards in the British Indian Army, where he worked to keep the peace during the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947. He transferred to the Pakistani Army at the birth of the country, and returned to a career in education, first of army officers. Then, at the invitation of the President, he joined the so-called "Eton of Pakistan", Aitchison College in Lahore. After 25 years there, he left to lead a military high school, Cadet College Razmak. He ended his career by taking on a new school in Chitral and raising it to internationally high standards; he continued to lead it into his 90s, when it was renamed in his honour Langlands School and College.
The October 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake was a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck South Asia on 26 October 2015, at 13:39 AFT with the epicenter 45 km north of `Alaqahdari-ye Kiran wa Munjan, Afghanistan, at a depth of 212.5 km.
Maureen Patricia Lines, locally known as Bibi Dow of Kalash, was a British author, photographer, social worker and environmentalist who was known for her work on the Kalasha people.
