Pamir Mountains
Template:Short description Template:Expand French Template:Infobox mountain
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.
Much of the range lies in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan.<ref>According to the Big Soviet Encyclopedia "The question of the natural boundaries of Pamir is debatable. Normally Pamir is regarded as covering the territory from Trans-Alay Range to the north, Sarykol Range to the east, Lake Zorkul, Pamir River, and the upper reaches of Panj River to the south, and the meridional section of the Panj valley to the west; to the north-west Pamir includes the eastern parts of Peter the Great and Darvaz ranges."</ref> Spanning the border parts of four countries,<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> to the south, they border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan Province, Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Pakistan. To the north, they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the east, they extend to the range that includes China's Kongur Tagh, in the "Eastern Pamirs",<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> separated by the Yarkand valley from the Kunlun Mountains.
Since the Victorian era, they have been known as the "Roof of the World", presumably a translation from Persian.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Names and etymology
In other languages
The Pamir region is home to several different cultures, peoples and languages. In some of these languages, the Pamir Mountains are referred by different names.
In Indo-European languages, they are called:
- Template:Lang in Shughni;
- Template:Lang Template:Transliteration in Russian;
- Template:Lang Template:Transliteration in Pashto;
- Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Transliteration in Tajik;
- Template:Lang Template:Transliteration in Urdu;
- Template:Lang Template:Transliteration in Sanskrit.
In Turkic languages, they are called:
- Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Transliteration in Kyrgyz;
- Template:Lang, Template:Transliteration, Template:Lang in Uyghur.
In Chinese, they are referred as "Onion Range" (Template:Lang-zh), which is named after the wild onions growing in the region;<ref>Template:Cite wikisource</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the Dungan dialect of Mandarin, it is written Template:Lang in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in Xiao'erjing it is written Template:Lang / Template:Lang. The name "Pamir" is used more commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as Template:Lang / Template:Lang Template:Transliteration.
Geological term
Template:AnchorAccording to Middleton and Thomas, "pamir" is also a geological term.<ref name=middleton/> A pamir is a flat plateau or U-shaped valley surrounded by mountains. It forms when a glacier or ice field melts leaving a rocky plain. A pamir lasts until erosion forms soil and cuts down normal valleys. This type of terrain is found in the east and north of the Wakhan,<ref name="akdn3">Template:Cite web</ref> and the east and south of Gorno-Badakhshan, as opposed to the valleys and gorges of the west. Pamirs are used for summer pasture.<ref name=middleton/><ref name=akdn3/>
The Great Pamir is around Lake Zorkul. The Little Pamir is east of this in the far east of Wakhan.<ref name=akdn3/> The Taghdumbash Pamir is between Tashkurgan and the Wakhan west of the Karakoram Highway. The Alichur Pamir is around Yashil Kul on the Gunt River. The Sarez Pamir is around the town of Murghab, Tajikistan. The Khargush Pamir is south of Lake Karakul. There are several others.
The Pamir River is in the south-west of the Pamirs.
Geography
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Slopes of Pamir Mountains on the Chinese side and Muztagh Ata
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Pamir Mountains from a NASA satellite image, April 2012
Mountain
The three highest mountains in the Pamirs core are Ismoil Somoni Peak (known from 1932 to 1962 as Stalin Peak, and from 1962 to 1998 as Communism Peak), Template:Convert; Ibn Sina Peak (still unofficially known as Lenin Peak), Template:Convert; and Peak Korzhenevskaya (Template:Langx, Pik Korzhenevskoi), Template:Convert.<ref>Tajikistan: 15 Years of Independence, statistical yearbook, Dushanbe, 2006, p. 8, in Russian.</ref> In the Eastern Pamirs, China's Kongur Tagh is the highest at Template:Convert.
Among the significant peaks of the Pamir Mountains are the following:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Remark: The summits of the Kongur and Muztagata Group are in some sources counted as part of the Kunlun, which would make Pik Ismoil Somoni the highest summit of the Pamir.
Glaciers
There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the Template:Convert long Vanch-Yakh Glacier, the longest in the former USSR and the longest glacier outside the polar regions.<ref>In the Karakoram Mountains, Siachen Glacier is 76 km long, Biafo Glacier is 67 km long, and Baltoro is 63 km long. The Bruggen or Pio XI Glacier in southern Chile is 66 km long. Kyrgyzstan's South Inylchek (Enylchek) Glacier is 60.5 km in length. Measurements are from recent imagery, generally with Russian 1:200,000 scale topographic mapping for reference as well as the 1990 Orographic Sketch Map: Karakoram: Sheets 1 and 2, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich.</ref> Approximately 12,500 km2 (ca. 10%)<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> of the Pamirs are glaciated. Glaciers in the Southern Pamirs are retreating rapidly. Ten percent of annual runoff is supposed to originate from retreating glaciers in the Southern Pamirs.<ref name=":0" /> In the North-Western Pamirs, glaciers have almost stable mass balances.<ref name=":0" />
Climate
Covered in snow during most of the year, the Pamirs have long and bitterly cold winters, and short, cool summers, which equals an ET (tundra climate) according to Köppen climate classification (EF above the snow line). Annual precipitation is about Template:Convert, which supports grasslands but few trees.
Paleoclimatology during the Ice Age
The East-Pamir, in the centre of which the massifs of Mustagh Ata (7620 m) and Kongur Tagh (Qungur Shan, 7578, 7628 or 7830 m) are situated, shows from the western margin of the Tarim Basin an east–west extension of c. 200 km. Its north–south extension from King Ata Tagh up to the northwest Kunlun foothills amounts to c.170 km. Whilst the up to 21 km long current valley glaciers are restricted to mountain massifs exceeding 5600 m in height, during the last glacial period the glacier ice covered the high plateau with its set-up highland relief, continuing west of Mustagh Ata and Kongur. From this glacier area an outlet glacier has flowed down to the north-east through the Gez valley up to c.1850 m asl (meters above sea level) and thus as far as to the margin of the Tarim basin. This outlet glacier received inflow from the Kaiayayilak glacier from the Kongur north flank. From the north-adjacent Kara Bak Tor (Chakragil, c. 6800 or 6694 m) massif, the Oytag valley glacier in the same exposition flowed also down up to c. 1850 m asl. At glacial times the glacier snowline (ELATemplate:Efn-ua) as altitude limit between glacier nourishing area and ablation zone, was about 820 to 1250 metres lower than it is today.<ref>Kuhle, M. (1997):New findings concerning the Ice Age (LGM) glacier cover of the East Pamir, of the Nanga Parbat up to the Central Himalaya and of Tibet, as well as the Age of the Tibetan Inland Ice. Tibet and High Asia (IV). Results of Investigations into High Mountain Geomorphology. Paleo-Glaciology and Climatology of the Pleistocene. GeoJournal, 42, (2–3), pp. 87–257.</ref><ref>Kuhle, M. (2004):The High Glacial (Last Ice Age and LGM) glacier cover in High- and Central Asia. Accompanying text to the mapwork in hand with detailed references to the literature of the underlying empirical investigations. Ehlers, J., Gibbard, P. L. (Eds.). Extent and Chronology of Glaciations, Vol. 3 (Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica). Amsterdam, Elsevier B.V., pp. 175–199.</ref> Under the condition of comparable proportions of precipitation there results from this a glacial depression of temperature of at least 5 to 7.5 °C.
Economy
Coal is mined in the west, though sheep herding in upper meadowlands is the primary source of income for the region.
Exploration
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The lapis lazuli found in Egyptian tombs is thought to come from the Pamir area in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.<ref name=middleton>This section is based on the book by R. Middleton and H. Thomas: Robert Middleton and Huw Thomas, 'Tajikistan and the High Pamirs', Odyssey Books, 2008</ref> About 138 BCE Zhang Qian reached the Fergana Valley northwest of the Pamirs. Ptolemy vaguely describes a trade route through the area. From about 600 CE, Buddhist pilgrims travelled on both sides of the Pamirs to reach India from China. In 747 a Tang army was on the Wakhan River. There are various Arab and Chinese reports. Marco Polo may have travelled along the Panj River. In 1602 Bento de Goes travelled from Kabul to Yarkand and left a meager report on the Pamirs. In 1838 Lieutenant John Wood reached the headwaters of the Pamir River. From about 1868 to 1880, a number of Indians in the British service secretly explored the Panj area. In 1873 the British and Russians agreed to an Afghan frontier along the Panj River. From 1871 to around 1893 several Russian military-scientific expeditions mapped out most of the Pamirs (Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko, Nikolai Severtzov, Captain Dmitry Putyata and others. Later came Nikolai Korzhenevskiy). Several local groups asked for Russian protection from Afghan raiders. The Russians were followed by a number of non-Russians including Ney Elias, George Littledale, the Earl of Dunmore, Wilhelm Filchner and Lord Curzon who was probably the first to reach the Wakhan source of the Oxus River. In 1891 the Russians informed Francis Younghusband that he was on their territory and later escorted a Lieutenant Davidson out of the area ('Pamir Incident'). In 1892 a battalion of Russians under Mikhail Ionov entered the area and camped near the present Murghab. In 1893 they built a proper fort there (Pamirskiy Post). In 1895 their base was moved to Khorog facing the Afghans.
In 1928 the last blank areas around the Fedchenko Glacier were mapped by the German-Soviet Alay-Pamir Expedition under Template:Interlanguage link.
Discoveries
In the early 1980s, a deposit of gemstone-quality clinohumite was discovered in the Pamir Mountains. It was the only such deposit known until the discovery of gem-quality material in the Taymyr region of Siberia, in 2000.
The earliest known evidence of human cannabis use was found in tombs at the Jirzankal Cemetery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Transport
The Pamir Highway, the world's second highest international road, runs from Dushanbe in Tajikistan to Osh in Kyrgyzstan through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province, and is the isolated region's main supply route. The Great Silk Road crossed a number of Pamir Mountain ranges.<ref>Template:Cite web </ref>
Tourism
In December 2009, the New York Times featured articles on the possibilities for tourism in the Pamir area of Tajikistan.<ref name=nytimes_pamir/><ref name=nytimes_crossroads/> 2013 proved to be the most successful year ever for tourism in the region and tourism development continues to be the fastest growing economic sector.
Strategic position
Historically, the Pamir Mountains were considered a strategic trade route between Kashgar and Kokand on the Northern Silk Road, a prehistoric trackway, and have been subject to numerous territorial conquests. The Northern Silk Road (about Template:Convert in length) connected the ancient Chinese capital Chang'an with Kashgar over the Pamir Mountains towards the west, and from there continued to ancient Parthia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the 20th century, these mountains have been the setting for the Tajikistan Civil War, border disputes between China and the Soviet Union, establishment of military bases by the US, Russia, and India,<ref name=hindu2003 /> and renewed interest in trade development and resource exploration.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore </ref> The Chinese government says it has resolved most of the disputes it had with Central Asian countries.<ref name="china_mfa">Template:Cite web</ref>
Religious symbolism
Some researchers identify the Pamirs with the Mount Meru or Sumeru.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>George Nathaniel Curzon; The Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism, 1968, p 184</ref><ref>Benjamin Walker - Hinduism; Ancient Indian Tradition & Mythology: Template:IAST in Translation, 1969, p 56</ref><ref>Jagdish Lal Shastri, Arnold Kunst, G. P. Bhatt, Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare - Oriental literature; Journal of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1928, p 38</ref><ref>Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal - History; Geographical Concepts in Ancient India, 1967, p 50</ref><ref>Bechan Dube - India; Geographical Data in the Early Template:IAST: A Critical Study, 1972, p 2</ref><ref>Dr M. R. Singh - India; Studies in the Proto-history of India, 1971, p 17</ref> The Mount Meru is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hinduism, Buddhist and Jain, and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
- Tajik National Park
- Pamir languages
- Pamiris
- List of mountain ranges
- List of highest mountains
- Soviet Central Asia
- Central Asia
- Mount Imeon
- Ak-Baital Pass
- China–Tajikistan border
- Karachukar Valley
- Barque Pamir
Notes
References
Further reading
- Leitner, G. W. (1890). Dardistan in 1866, 1886 and 1893: Being an Account of the History, Religions, Customs, Legends, Fables and Songs of Gilgit, Chilas, Kandia (Gabrial) Yasin, Chitral, Hunza, Nagyr and other parts of the Hindukush. With a supplement to the second edition of The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook. And an Epitome of Part III of the author's "The Languages and Races of Dardistan". First Reprint 1978. Manjusri Publishing House, New Delhi.
- Murray, Charles (1894). The Pamirs; being a narrative of a year's expedition on horseback and on foot through Kashmir, western Tibet, Chinese Tartary, and Russian Central Asia. J. Murray. (Vol. I and II)
- Curzon, George Nathaniel. (1896). The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Royal Geographical Society, London. Reprint: Elibron Classics Series, Adamant Media Corporation. 2005. Template:ISBN (pbk; Template:ISBN (hbk).
- Wood, John, (1872). A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus. With an essay on the Geography of the Valley of the Oxus by Colonel Henry Yule. London: John Murray.
- 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 by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company. Taipei. 1971.
- Cobbold, Ralph Patteson (1900). Innermost Asia: travel & sport in the Pamirs. W. Heinemann.
- Strong, Anna Louise. (1930). The Road to the Grey Pamir. Robert M. McBride & Co., New York.
- Toynbee, Arnold J. (1961). Between Oxus and Jumna. London. Oxford University Press.
- Slesser, Malcolm (1964). Red Peak: A Personal Account of the British-Soviet Expedition. Coward McCann.
- Wang, Miao (1983). From the Pamirs to Beijing : tracing Marco Polo's northern route. HK China Tourism Press.
- Tilman, H. W. (1983). "Two Mountains and a River" part of The Severn Mountain Travel Books. Diadem, London.
- Waugh, Daniel C. (1999). "The 'Mysterious and Terrible Karatash Gorges': Notes and Documents on the Explorations by Stein and Skrine." The Geographical Journal, Vol. 165, No. 3. (Nov., 1999), pp. 306–320.
- Horsman, S. (2002). Peaks, Politics and Purges: the First Ascent of Pik Stalin in Douglas, E. (ed.) Alpine Journal 2002 (Volume 107), The Alpine Club & Ernest Press, London, pp 199–206.
- Gecko-Maps (2004). The Pamirs. 1:500.000 – A tourist map of Gorno-Badkshan-Tajikistan and background information on the region. Verlag "Gecko-Maps", Switzerland (Template:ISBN)
- Dagiev, Dagikhudo, and Carole Faucher, eds. (2018). Identity, History and Trans-nationality in Central Asia: The Mountain Communities of Pamir. Routledge.
External links
Template:Commons Template:Wikivoyage
- Life in Afghanistan's Pamir mountains
- Information and photos
- Afghan's Little Pamir – photos of the life of ethnic Kyrgyz (Archive)