Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province

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The provinces of Tajikistan with the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province marked.

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAP) (Tajik: Вилояти Мухтори Кӯҳистони Бадахшон/Viloyati Mukhtori Kuhistoni Badakhshon) is a mountainous province of Tajikistan. It makes up 40% of the land area of the country.

The name Gorno-Badakhshan comes from Russian, where it expresses the meaning Mountainous Badakhshan.^[1]

Most of the province is traditionally claimed by the Republic of China (based in Taiwan) as part of Xinjiang province. (See Political divisions of the Republic of China.)

1 History
2 Districts
3 Geography
4 Demographics
5 Transportation
6 Notes
7 See also
8 External link

[edit] History

During the Soviet period the GBAP was known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (Горно-Бадахшанская автономная область), or the GBAO. In English oblast is frequently translated as region and thus the name Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, or the GBAR, frequently appears in literature. The GBAO was created in January 1925. The GBAO was attached to the republic of Tajikistan after the latter was created in 1929. During the 1950s many of the local inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan, known as Pamiris, were forcibly relocated to southwestern Tajikistan. After Tajikistan gained independence in 1991 the region was renamed the "Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province." When civil war broke out in Tajikistan in 1992 the local government in the GBAP declared independence from the republic of Tajikistan. During the civil war many Pamiris were targeted for killings by rival groups and the GBAP became a bastion for the opposition. Later the GBAP local government backed down from their calls for independence.

[edit] Districts

[edit] Geography

The highest mountains in the Pamirs, and three of the five 7,000 meter summits in previously Soviet Central Asia are located here, with Independence Peak (formerly Lenin Peak) (7,134m, on the border with Kyrgyzstan), Ismail Samani Peak (formerly Communism Peak) (7,495m) and Peak Korzhenievski (7,105m).

[edit] Demographics

The population is mainly Tajik, with small Kyrgyz and Russian minorities. The largest city in GBAP is Khorog, population 22,000; the second largest is Murghab, with about 4,000 residents. GBAP is home to a number of distinct languages and dialects of the Pamir languages group: Shughni, Rushani, Wakhi, Ishkashimi, Vanji, Sarikoli, Bartangi, Khufi, Yazgulyam, and Oroshani. Vanji, spoken in the Vanj River valley, went extinct in the 19th century. There is a sizable population of Kyrgyz speakers in the Murghab region. Russian and Tajik are also widely spoken throughout GBAP. The majority religion in GBAP is Ismaili Shi'ite and adherence to the Aga Khan is widespread.

[edit] Transportation

Only two easily navigable roads connect GBAP to the outside world, Khorog-Osh and Khorog-Dushanbe, both of which are segments of the Pamir Highway. A third road from Khorog to Tashkurgan in China through the Kulma Pass is very rough. Gorno-Badakhshan is separated from Pakistan by the narrow, but nearly impassable, Wakhan Corridor. Another road leads from Khorog into the Wakhan and across the Afghan border.

[edit] Notes

^ Note on the Russian component of the name. The Russian name for the province is Горно-Бадахшанская (автономная область)/Gorno-Badakhshanskaya (a.o.), which translates as Mountainous Badakhshan (autonomous region) and is derived from the standalone phrase Горный Бадахшан/Gornyy Badakhshan, Mountainous Badakhshan by a rather wide-spread model of formation of geographic names in modern Russian.