Wakhan Corridor

The Wakhan Corridor or Wakhan Salient is a narrow (in some places less than 10 miles wide) corridor in the Wakhan in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. It is located in the Pamir mountain region, with Tajikistan to the north, Pakistan to the south and China to the east. It was created at the end of 19th century by the British Empire, to act as a buffer against potential Russian ambitions in India during the Great Game.

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. Before the advent of Islam the region was disputed between Tibet and China.

At the eastern end, the Wakhjir is a pass through the Hindu Kush at 4,923 m, and has the sharpest official change of clocks of any international frontier ( in Afghanistan to UTC+8, China Standard Time, in China). The border here with China is among the highest in the world.According to the paper by J.Townsend (2005), the pass "is closed for at least five months a year and is open irregularly for the remainder."

The Corridor is sparsely populated. The main people present in the corridor are the Wakhi, along with smaller numbers of Kyrgyz.

J. Townsend (2005) discusses the possibility of drug smuggling from Afghanistan to China via Wakhan Corridor and Wakhjir Pass, but concludes that, due to the difficulties of travel and border crossings, even if such trafficking occurs, it is minor compared to that conducted via Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province or even via Pakistan, which both have much more accessible connections into China.

Alastair Leithead on BBC News 24 on the 26th December 2007 presented a half hour feature about the corridor focusing particularly on the work of expatriate British Doctor Alexander Duncan which provided a significant piece of extended media reporting from this inaccessible area. The programme seems a follow up to this BBC Radio 4 piece accessible at http://www.mininova.org/tor/964145 . He has also covered the Pamir Festival in the area traceable through http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/pamir-festival-mehboob-aziz/.

ee also

*Durand Line

Books

M. Nazif Mohib Shahrani, "The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War". University of Washington Press, 2002. ISBN 0295982624.

External links

* [http://gojal.net WAKHIS IN PAKISTAN]
* [http://greatgametravel.co.uk/StandardPage.asp?SiteStructureID=40&PageID=39 Pamir Trekking Information]
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g7630.ct000716 CIA Relief Map]
* [http://www.mockandoneil.com/stg04tc.htm The Source of the Oxus River: Journey to the Wakhan Pamir & Across Dilisang Pass to Misgar (2004)]
* Jacob Townsend, [http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/inside/publications/Townsend_4.pdf "China and Afghan Opiates: Assessing the Risk"] (Chapter 4). June 2005
* [http://www.wakhandev.org.uk Wakhan Development Partnership] A project working to improve the lives of the people of Wakhan since 2003
* [http://avgustin.net/gallery.php?id=50 Wakhan Corridor] Photos from Afghan Wakhan Corridor

Territorial disputes in East, South, and Southeast Asia