The Wakhan Corridor is a narrow strip of territory located within the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. This corridor stretches eastward, connecting Afghanistan to Xinjiang, China. It also separates the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan in the north from the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Kashmir in the south. This high mountain valley serves as the source of both the Panj and Pamir rivers, which converge to form the larger Amu River. For countless centuries, a vital trade route has traversed this valley, facilitating the movement of travelers to and from East, South, and Central Asia.
The Pamir Mountains are a range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world's highest mountains.
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area but only two percent of its population.
Wakhan, or "the Wakhan", is a rugged, mountainous part of the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram regions of Afghanistan. Wakhan District is a district in Badakshan Province.
Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan in the north and the Pakistani regions of Lower and Upper Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan in the southeast. It also has a 91-kilometer (57-mile) border with China in the east.
Zorkul is a lake in the Pamir Mountains that runs along the border between the Wakhan District in Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region of Tajikistan. It is part of both the Wakhan National Park of Afghanistan and the Tajik National Park.
The Marco Polo sheep is a subspecies of argali sheep, named after Marco Polo. Their habitat are the mountainous regions of Central Asia. Marco Polo sheep are distinguishable mostly by their large size and spiraling horns. Their conservation status is "near threatened" and efforts have been made to protect their numbers and keep them from being hunted. It has also been suggested that crossing them with domestic sheep could have agricultural benefits.
The Pamiris are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group, native to Central Asia, living primarily in Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan), Afghanistan (Badakhshan), Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan) and China. They speak a variety of different languages, amongst which languages of the Eastern Iranian Pamir language group stand out. The languages of the Shughni-Rushani group, alongside Wakhi, are the most widely spoken Pamiri languages.
Afghanistan has long been known for diverse wildlife. Many of the larger mammals in the country are categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as globally threatened. These include the snow leopard, Marco Polo sheep, Siberian musk deer, markhor, urial, and the Asiatic black bear. Other species of interest are the ibex, the gray wolf, and the brown bear, striped hyenas, and numerous bird of prey species. Most of the Marco Polo sheep and ibex are being poached for food, whereas wolves, snow leopards and bears are being killed for damage prevention.
Panthera pardus tulliana, also called Anatolian leopard, Persian leopard and Caucasian leopard in different parts of its range, is a leopard subspecies that was first described in 1856 based on a zoological specimen found in western Anatolia. It is native to the Iranian Plateau and the surrounding region from eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus to the Hindu Kush, where it inhabits foremost subalpine meadows, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and rugged ravines at elevations of 600 to 3,800 m. It preys mostly on ungulates reliant on these habitats.
Bazai Gonbad or Bozai Gumbaz is the site of a domed tomb and nearby settlement of mostly ethnic Kyrgyz herders in the Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan. It lies in the Little Pamir on the right bank of the Bozai River, near where it joins Wakhjir River to become the Wakhan River. It is part of the Wakhan National Park and protected by the Afghan Armed Forces.
Khandud (Khandut) is a river valley in the Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province in north-eastern Afghanistan. The village of Khandud serves as the capital of Wakhan District, and is located near the left bank of the Panj River. It is connected by a road to Ishkashim in the southwest and Sarhad in the east.
Sarhad, also known as Sarhad-e Broghil or Sarhad-e Wakhan, is a river valley in the Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan.
The Wakhjir Pass, also spelled Vakhjir Pass, is a mountain pass in the Hindu Kush or Pamirs at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, the only potentially navigable pass between Afghanistan and China in the modern era. It links Wakhan in Afghanistan with the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, China, at an altitude of 4,923 metres (16,152 ft). The pass is not an official border crossing point. With a difference of 3.5 hours, the Afghanistan–China border has the sharpest official change of clocks of any international frontier. China refers to the pass as South Wakhjir Pass, as there is a northern pass on the Chinese side.
The Little Pamir is a broad U-shaped grassy valley or pamir in the eastern part of the Wakhan in north-eastern Afghanistan. The valley is 100 km long and 10 km wide, and is bounded to the north by the Nicholas Range, a subrange of the Pamir Mountains.
The Great Pamir or Big Pamir is a broad U-shaped grassy valley or pamir in the eastern part of the Wakhan in north-eastern Afghanistan and the adjacent part of Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. Zorkol lake lies at the northern edge of the Great Pamir.
The Taxkorgan Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. It is situated around the Taghdumbash Pamir of Pamir Mountains and Karakorum Mountains. It covers about 14,000 square kilometres (5,400 sq mi) was established in 1984 mainly to protect the rare Marco Polo sheep and Tibetan argali. It has since also served to protect other species such as the snow leopard.
Zorkul Nature Reserve is a 1,610 km2 (620 sq mi) nature reserve in the south-eastern section of the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region of Tajikistan, adjoining the border with the Wakhan National Park of Afghanistan in the Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province. The area was made a zakaznik in 1972 for the conservation of bar-headed geese and upgraded to a full nature reserve in 2000. It has also been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA).
The Afghanistan–China border is a 92-kilometre-long (57 mi) boundary between Afghanistan and China, beginning at the tripoint of both countries with the Pakistan's federally administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, following the watershed along the Mustagh Range, and ending at the tripoint with Tajikistan. This short border is in the far northeast of Afghanistan, distant from much of the country or urban areas in either country, at the end of the long, narrow Wakhan Corridor. The Chinese side of the border is in the Chalachigu Valley. The border is crossed by several mountain passes, including Wakhjir Pass in the south and Tegermansu Pass in the north.
