Pamir Mountains


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, the Karakoram, the Kunlun, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalayas. They are among the world's highest mountains.
Much of the range lies in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan. Spanning the border parts of four countries, 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", 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.

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:
  • Pomīr/Pomer/Pomīr Kūen/Pomer Kūen in Shughni;
  • Памир/Памирские горы/Горные вершины Памира in Russian;
  • پامیر غرونه in Pashto;
  • رشته کوه‌های پامیر, Ришта Кӯҳҳои Помир, in Tajik;
  • in Urdu;
  • सुमेरु in Sanskrit.
In Turkic languages, they are called:
  • پامىر توولورۇ, Памир Тоолору, in Kyrgyz;
  • پامىر ئېگىزلىكى,, Памир Егизлики in Uyghur.
In Chinese, they are referred as "Onion Range", which is named after the wild onions growing in the region; In the Dungan dialect of Mandarin, it is written Памир / Цунлин in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in Xiao'erjing it is written پَامِعَر / ڞوْلٍْ. The name "Pamir" is used more commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as 帕米尔 / 帕米爾 .

Geological term

According to Middleton and Thomas, "pamir" is also a geological term. 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, and the east and south of Gorno-Badakhshan, as opposed to the valleys and gorges of the west. Pamirs are used for summer pasture.
The Great Pamir is around Lake Zorkul. The Little Pamir is east of this in the far east of Wakhan. 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

Mountain

The three highest mountains in the Pamirs core are Ismoil Somoni Peak, ; Ibn Sina Peak, ; and Peak Korzhenevskaya,. In the Eastern Pamirs, China's Kongur Tagh is the highest at.
Among the significant peaks of the Pamir Mountains are the following:
Native nameTranslated nameHeight
in meters		Coord.Sub-rangeCountry




Kongur 7,649Kongur Shan



Muztagh Ata7,546Muztagh Ata Massif

Kongur Jiubie 7,530Kongur Shan

Ismoil Somoni Peak
7,495Academy of Sciences Range


Lenin Peak
7,134Trans-Alay Range,

Peak Ozodi
7,105Academy of Sciences Range

Independence Peak
6,940Yazgulem Range

Russia Peak6,875Academy of Sciences Range

Moscow Peak6,785Peter I Range

Karl Marx Peak6,723Shakhdara Range

Kurumdy Mountain6,614Trans-Alay Range,

Mount Garmo6,595Academy of Sciences Range

Engels Peak6,510Shakhdara Range
Коҳи ПамирKohi Pamir6,320Wakhan RangeAfghanistanCoord|38.424|73.302|type:mountain_region:TJ-GB_elevation:6233|name=Peak of the Soviet OfficersTJKnativename|ru|Пик Маяковскогоnativename|tg|Қуллаи МаяковскийCoord|37.021092|71.715138|type:mountain_region:TJ-GB_elevation:6095|name=Mayakovskiy PeakTJKnativename|ru|Пик Патхурnativename|tg|Қуллаи ПаххорCoord|37.889167|72.189167|type:mountain_region:TJ-GB_elevation:6083|name=Patkhor PeakTJKCoord|39.348|72.477|type:mountain_elevation:5725|name=Leipzig PeakTJKKGZCoord|37.6005|72.227|type:mountain_region:TJ-GB_elevation:5707|name=Skalisty PeakTJKCoord|37.4006|72.8435|type:mountain_region:TJ-GB_elevation:5704|name=Kysyldangi PeakTJK

Glaciers

There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the long Vanch-Yakh Glacier, the longest in the former USSR and the longest glacier outside the polar regions. Approximately 12,500 km2 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. In the North-Western Pamirs, glaciers have almost stable mass balances.

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 according to Köppen climate classification. Annual precipitation is about, which supports grasslands but few trees.

Paleoclimatology during the Ice Age

The East-Pamir, in the centre of which the massifs of Mustagh Ata and Kongur Tagh 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 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 massif, the Oytag valley glacier in the same exposition flowed also down up to c. 1850 m asl. At glacial times the glacier snowline
as altitude limit between glacier nourishing area and ablation zone, was about 820 to 1250 metres lower than it is today. 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

is mined in the west, though sheep herding in upper meadowlands is the primary source of income for the region.

Exploration

The lapis lazuli found in Egyptian tombs is thought to come from the Pamir area in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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.