Misgar Valley

Misgar Valley is located in the Hunza District, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan. It is a quiet and mysterious village high in the mountains, 10 kilometers from the Karakoram Highway. Before the construction of the Karakoram Highway, this same Masgar route was used to reach China. The junction of four countries, China, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, is near the town of Masgar.

It is located on the northern edge of the Hunza district, where Pakistan’s borders with Xinjiang and the Wakhan Corridor meet. The Wakhan Strip forms a 350-kilometer-long border between Pakistan and Afghanistan from Masgar to Chitral, while the border between Pakistan and China from Misgar to Skardu is 560 kilometers long.

Beyond Misgar, two mountain passes, Mintaka Pass and Kilik Pass, were used by China. In Masgar, the British also built a border protection fort, ‘Qalamdarchi’, in 1932, which still exists today. This fort was built by the British to keep an eye on the movement of the Chinese and Russians in the area.