Besham (also known as Besham Qala) is the largest town and commercial centre of the Shangla District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Most of the population is pashto speaking pashtun [locally Pukhtun].
Besham's shops remained open 24 hours a day due to its geographic position, as it is on the famous Silk route which connects Pakistan with China. Besham shops are famous for their china and international goods. In summer this small town is the centre of international and national holiday makers who use this route to visit the Northern areas of Pakistan.
Besham has got a few good hotels including PTDC Motel, Besham Continental Hotel, Hotel Paris and many more.
People in this small town are friendly and hospitable. There is a civil hospital which was upgraded to the Tehsil level. As the Besham city located at very important place in the area, there are many governmental and non governmental organization offices exist here. Indus Social and Development Organization (ISWDO) is one of the development organization having its head office in Besham. ISWDO is working for the development of the people of the Shangla and Kohistan since 2001. ISWDO has implemented many projects being Implementing Partner (IP) of many national and International organizations. Besham name was given the name because of its night position and that is because of it 24 hours opened shops because of the tourism often reaches there at night and therefore most of the times people work tonight ..in besham you will have to put two persons for running a shop for one works in the day and other works tonight .
EDUCATION: Besham is a good education centre and lots of students study there from all around the areas because the schools standard is very high and competitivo . students from besham also visit to foreign countries on scholarships ..example is Sahib Khan,Hafiz Ihsanullah, Asaf khan and Riaz ahmed are studying in Cuba on govt scholarships and many more all over the world ..
Besham has lots of colonies and different tribes come from near areas to find their good life there ..
besham has two beaches "jeenako gudar" and simple "gudar" on the coast of the famous river sindh [ABASIN] which is very famous tourist spot. and is a very deadly river because it annually kills 5 people...