Guard corridor

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Guard corridor
The Wakhan and the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border

The Wachan Corridor (also Wakhan Corridor or just Wakhan ) is a narrow stretch of land in northeastern Afghanistan that extends between the border with Tajikistan in the north and that with Pakistan in the south to a short border between Afghanistan and China in the east. Its length is about 300 km, its width varies between 17 km and over 60 km. The area is practically only habitable in the valley of the Wachandarja , because this main river of the area already runs at altitudes between about 4000 and 2800 meters. The population consists of around 10,000 Wakhi and a few thousand nomadic Kyrgyz people .

geography

The Wachan Corridor is one of the most remote areas in Afghanistan. It lies between the Pamir Mountains and the Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges . Its western entrance is at Ischkaschim, 2660 m above sea level . In the east it ends in the valleys of the two source rivers of the Wachandarja, the 4030 m high valley on Shaqmaqtin Lake and the 4923 m high Wakhjir Pass . Its northern border with Tajikistan is formed from the Zorkulsee by the Pamir and then the Pandsch , while the southern border with Pakistan runs over the mountain ridges south of the Wachandarja. Therefore, the northern side of the valley belongs to Tajikistan, while the Wachan Corridor consists of the southern side of the valley and the valley of the Wachandarja including the mountains between the two rivers. It is one of the least developed regions in the world in the immediate vicinity of the comparatively advanced Tajik area with well-developed roads and modern settlements. The corridor from Ischkashim can be traversed up to two thirds to the east to Sarhad-e Broghil on a gravel road. After that it is only possible to get around with mule caravans or the like. A few kilometers below Sarhad-e Broghil the route to Broghil Pass and 6 km further east to Darwasa Pass to Pakistan begins .

history

The Wachan Corridor is a relic of the Great Game between Great Britain and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia at the end of the 19th century. It was supposed to form a neutral zone between British India, which reached as far as the Durand Line , on the one hand, and Russian Central Asia on the other. The northern areas of the Wakhan came under a treaty between Russia and British India in 1873 to Tajikistan (today the autonomous region of Berg-Badachschan ), the southern to the buffer state Afghanistan. Only this part is called the (actual) Wachan today.

The corridor is named after the river Vachandarja , which flows through it in the eastern part , which joins the Pamir to the Pandsch in the middle part of the corridor (which in turn is one of the headwaters of the Amu Darya ).

The valleys of the Pamir and Wachandarja are old caravan routes, but there has hardly been any reliable geographical information about them in the west since Marco Polo crossed the area on his journey to the court of Kublai Khan in 1274 and Benedict Goës between 1602 and 1607 from Kabul reached Karashahr through the Pamir via Kashgar and Yarkant . In the 19th century, some Europeans and Indians came to the area, but more as adventurers or diplomats, not geographers. It was not until the local surveyors sent by the British in the second half of the 19th century, known as pundits , to provide usable geographic information about these valleys for the first time.

The inaccessible mountain ranges were geographically almost unexplored until 1960. At first there were only a few sketches of the course of the mountain ridges and later a very small Soviet military map (1: 200,000), which was created from a flight close to the border .

When some Polish mountaineers and scientists came to the region in the 1960s , a still imprecise overview map was created . A longer cooperation with Austria began in 1970 when a research expedition ( Afghanistan EXPLORATION '70 ) from Graz University of Technology received the approval to map and botanically record some high valleys of the Wakhan (lit. see below, K. Gratzl 1972). Among the 15 or so expedition participants, Roger Senarclens de Grancy and Robert Kostka were responsible for surveying, terrestrial photogrammetry and cartography . Research into anthropology , the Wakhi language and local agriculture was also carried out.

In 1975 a second, larger expedition followed, in which, in addition to some participants in the first expedition, a. a. Manfred Buchroithner took part. It was supposed to expand and complete geoscientific exploration and connect it with maps of the Hindu Kush. Due to this field work, the Austrian Alpine Club was even able to issue a geological map 1: 250,000 a few years later . In the following years, the research was supplemented by satellite remote sensing , but then came to a standstill due to the armed conflicts.

Political structure

Administratively, the area forms the administrative district of Wakhan , which belongs to the Badachschan province . The district of Wakhan is 11,422 km² and has around 13,000 inhabitants.

See also

Caprivi Strip - Comparable stretch of land in northeastern Namibia

literature

Web links

Commons : Wachankorridor  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Remembering the Great Game. In: nzz.ch. Retrieved November 11, 2017 .
  2. ↑ limited preview in the Google book search

Coordinates: 37 ° 0 '  N , 73 ° 0'  E