X-Nico

unusual facts about Gilgit-Baltistan


Gold-digging ant

French ethnologist Michel Peissel claims that the Himalayan marmot on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province of Pakistan, may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants".


1989 Pakistan International Airlines Fokker Friendship disappearance

On 25 August 1989 at 07:36, a domestic scheduled passenger flight of Pakistan International Airlines took off from Northern city of Gilgit, Pakistan on its way to the national capital Islamabad.

Aulocera padma

The butterfly is found in the Himalayas from Shingarh, (Zhob, Safed Koh, Kurram, Gilgit, Chitral, India (Kumaon, Bhutan, Sikkim and Chumbi valleys) eastwards across to Abor valley, north Myanmar, west China and southeast Tibet .

Bichhar Pass

To the north of the pass is Bichhari village in the Naltar valley in Gilgit district.

Bichhar pass (el. 14,870 ft.) is a high mountain pass at the boundary of the Ghizer and Gilgit districts in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.

Chand Bagh School

In March 2011 such tests were announced to take place in Karachi, Rahim Yar Khan, Quetta, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit, Sukkur and Peshawar, and also in Hyderabad in India.

Chillinji Pass

To the west of the pass is river Karambar that is known as Ishkoman river south of Imit, and joins Ghizar river at Gahkuch to become Gilgit river.

Chillinji pass (el. 17,503 ft., also marked as 17,360 ft.) is a high mountain pass that connects Karambar river valley (upper Gilgit valley) in Ishkoman tehsil of Ghizer district with Chapursan river valley (upper Hunza valley) in Gojal tehsil of Gilgit district in the Northern Areas in Pakistan.

Chitral District

It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Afghnistans Kunar, Badakshan and Nuristan provinces to the north and west, and with Swat and Dir to the south.

Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South

The program was aided by the Baltistan Health and Education Foundation as well as Canada's International Development Research Centre.

Diamer District

Before the Karakoram Highway was opened in 1978, the only road reaching Gilgit town from the south was a rough track north from Balakot to Babusar Pass (via Kaghan, Naran, Besal, and Gittidas) and further north through Babusar Gah to Chilas.

Geography of Gilgit–Baltistan

Many of the highest peaks in Gilgit–Baltistan, such as Baltoro Muztagh, K2 (Mount Godwin-Austen) (8,611 m), the second-highest mountain in the world), the Gasherbrums (7,932 - 8,080 meters, ranked 12-17 in the world), and Masherbrum (7,821 m), 22nd-highest in the world), lie in the Skardu District.

Northeast is Aksai Chin, (China), to the north and northwest is the Skardu District, to the west is the Astore District, and to the south is the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

George Scott Robertson

In 1888, he was attached to the Indian Foreign Office and assigned as agency surgeon in Gilgit, in northern Pakistan.

Ghulam Hassan Lobsang

Lobsang has primarily written reference texts and fictional material based on Baltistan's local traditions and culture.

Gilgit District

The main judivial structure in Gilgit–Baltistan comprises a High Court, composed of three judges selected by the government, supported by the Supreme Appellate Court.

Indus River - enters Gilgit District from Skardu District about six kilometers north of Jaglot where Gilgit River falls into Indus River and the Indus flows south along the Karakoram Highway.

Hill Pigeon

In Pakistan it occurs in northern Chitral particularly in the western part bordering Nuristan in Afghanistan, further east in valleys of Gilgit in Yasin and Hunza and Karakoram ranges in Baltistan from about 2000 meters in winter up to 5500 meters during summer months.

History of Gilgit–Baltistan

From 1947 to 1970, Gilgit–Baltistan was administered as part of Azad Kashmir.

According to the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times, the people of Gilgit Baltistan were liberated from the Dogra regime with the aid of the Pakistani army on 1 November 1947.

Gilgit Baltistan borders Azad Kashmir to the southwest, the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the northwest, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to the north and northeast and the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast.

The Pakistani parts of Kashmir to the north and west of the cease-fire line established at the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, or the Line of Control as it later came to be called, were divided into the Northern Areas (72,971 km²) in the north and the Pakistani state of Azad Kashmir (13,297 km²) in the south.

Kayani clan

Various subgroups that identify themselves as Kayanis include the Yamini tribe, the Tarkhani and Shahrais clans of Gilgit, and the Kayani Mughals of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Khaplu

"This fair spot what Kapalu, the richest district in Baltistan, and Regarded as a very Garden of Eden by the Balti people"

Lupghar Pir Pass

Lupghar Pir pass (el. 16,420 ft.) is a high mountain pass 6 miles to the west of village Lupghar in the upper Hunza valley in Gojal tehsil of Gilgit district in the Northern Areas in Pakistan.

Mian Ghulam Jilani

He fought a guerrilla war in northern Kashmir, engaged two divisions of the Indian Army and conquered the whole of Baltistan and was about to attack Leh, when the government of Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire at the behest of the United Nations.

Neelam District

It is bound by the Gilgit (Northern Areas) to the North, with Kupwara, Baramulla and Bandipore Districts of Indian-administered Kashmir in India to the South and Southeast, Muzaffarabad District to the Southwest and Mansehra District to the West.

Shina and Kashmiri are the predominant languages spoken in the northeastern part of the district towards the border with Baramulla, Gurez, Bandipore, Astore District and Baltistan and also in the far north on the border with Diamer District.

Noorbakshia Islam

Noorbakhshis doctrines were preached in Kashmir and Baltistan in the early 16th century by Mir Sham ud-Din Iraqi himself a disciple of Sayyid Muhammad Noorbakhshis ‘s son and spiritual heir, Shah Qasim Faidbakhsh.

Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew

He was subsequently employed in settling the boundaries of the territory of Maharaja Gulab Singh, the new ruler of Kashmir, and in a mission to Gilgit.

Sanghata Sutra

Manuscripts of the Sanghāta have been recovered in Gilgit (in 1931 and 1938), Khotan, Dunhuang, and other sites in Central Asia along the silk route.

Satpara Dam

Satpara Dam is a recently completed medium-size multi-purpose concrete-faced earth-filled dam located downstream of the existing Satpara Lake on the Satpara Stream approximately 4 km from the town of Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan.

Separatist movements of Pakistan

The name Balawaristan is used mainly by nationalists of the Gilgit, such as the Balawaristan National Front, who are seeking to define a separate identity for Gilgit, Baltistan and Ladakh regions from that of the Kashmir Valley and Jammu; Not recognised by either the Government of India, Pakistan and China.

Shah Mir

Rinchan from Ladakh, and Lankar Chak from Dard territory near Gilgit came to Kashmir, and played a notable role in the subsequent political history of the valley.

Shin of Hindukush

The Shins form the majority of the population in Gor, Chilas, Tangir, the Indus Valley below Sazin, and the upper part of the Gilgit Valley above Ponyal.

Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County

Tashkurgan County is located in the eastern part of the Pamir Plateau, where the Kunlun, Kara Kunlun, Hindukush and Tian Shan mountains come together, at the borders with Afghanistan (Wakhan Corridor), Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan Province) and Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan).

Woolly flying squirrel

Eupetaurus has been recorded in northern Pakistan in the area around Gilgit.

Zhangzhung

The Zhang Zhung culture was centered around sacred Mount Kailash and extended west to Sarmatians and present-day Ladakh & Baltistan, southwest to Jalandhar, south to the Kingdom of Mustang in Nepal, east to include central Tibet, and north across the vast Chang Tang plateau and the Taklamakan Desert to Shanshan.


see also