Shandur Polo Festival

Shandur Polo Festival is a unique sports festival held at from the 7th to the 9th of July every year. It is held in Shandur Polo Ground located in Shandur National Park in Gupis Yasin District, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan.

The polo tournament is played between teams from the Gilgit Baltistan districts and the Chitral district under freestyle rules. The festival also includes folk music, and dance, and a camping village is set up.

The idea of ​​a polo ground at Shandur was first mooted by Balti Raja Ali Sher Khan of Skardu. In 1935, Evelyn Hay Cobb, the British administrator for the Northern Territories, asked Ali Sher Khan and Niyat Qaboo Hayat Kakakhel, the Numdar of Chitral, to build a polo ground at Shandur.

The Shandur Polo Festival has become a means of communication between the people of the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and neighboring Gilgit-Baltistan. Freestyle mountain polo is arguably polo in its purest form. This version of the game played at Shandur Top has acquired legendary status and is of interest to international and domestic adventure tourists alike.