Wakhan

File:Wakhan cold.jpg

The Wakhan corridor

Wakhan (or Vakhan) is a very mountainous and rugged part of the Pamir region.

Geography

Вахон , Vakhan is located in and around the extreme north-east of Afghanistan, which is connected to China by a long, narrow strip called the Vakhan Corridor, which separates the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan from the North-West Frontier Province and Northern Areas of Pakistan.

It contains the headwaters of the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, and was an ancient corridor for travellers from the Tarim Basin to Badakshan. Western Wakhan (Xiumi) was conquered in the early part of the 1st century AD by Kujula Kadphises, the first "Great Kushan," and formed one of the five xihou or principalities that formed the nucleus of the original Kushan kingdom.

History

The borders of the Wakhan were set in an 1895 treaty between Russia and Britain, which had been wrestling over the control of Central Asia for nearly a century. In what was dubbed the "Great Game" (a term coined by British Army spy Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Light Cavalry), both countries had sent intrepid spies into the region, not a few of whom had been caught and beheaded. (Conolly was killed in Bokhara in 1842.) Eventually Britain and Russia agreed to use the entire country as a buffer zone, with the Wakhan extension ensuring that the borders of the Russian empire would never touch the borders of the British Raj.

Only a handful of Westerners are known to have traveled through the Wakhan Corridor since Marco Polo did it, in 1271. There had been sporadic European expeditions throughout the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. 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 the Wakhan and plowed a tank track halfway into the corridor. Today, the Wakhan has reverted to what it's been for much of its history: a primitive pastoral hinterland, home to about 7,000 Wakhi and Kirghiz people, scattered throughout some 40 small villages and camps. Opium smugglers sometimes use the Wakhan, traveling at night.

Wakhan District

Wakhan District is one of the 29 districts of Badakhshan Province in eastern Afghanistan. Total population for the district is about 13,000 residents. Wakhan District is bounded by three international borders: Tajikistan to the north, Pakistan to the south, and Afghanistan's only border with China to the east.

Demographics

Vakhan is sparsely populated. Most of its inhabitants speak the Vakhi language (x̌ik zik), and belong to an ethnic group known as Vakhi. Nomadic Kyrgyz herders live at the higher altitudes. The people also inhabit several surrounding areas adjacent to the Wakhan such as in Tajikistan, Pakistan and China.

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. Tapei. 1971.
• Shahrani, M. Nazif. (1979) The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War. University of Washington Press. 1st paperback edition with new preface and epilogue (2002). ISBN 0-295-98262-4.
• 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. [2]
• 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. Accessed 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.

External links

• Wakhan Development Partnership A project working to improve the lives of the people of Wakhan since 2003