GBAR Postal code

About Kuhistani Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAR)

The Kuhistani Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAR) occupies 45% of the country's geographical area but just 3% of its people.

Several semi-autonomous statelets, notably Darwaz, Shughnun-Rushan, and Wakhan, reigned over lands that are now part of Gorno-Badakhshan A.R. in Tajikistan and Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan prior to 1895. The Chinese, Russian, and Afghan empires all claimed the land. In reality, the Qing dynasty only held the passes east of Tashkurgan. The Chinese, Russian, and Afghan governments partitioned Badakhshan in the 1890s, but the Chinese continued to challenge the boundaries until a 2002 deal with Tajikistan.

Born in January 1925, Gorno-Badakhshan It became the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929. (an autonomous oblast of the Soviet Union). Natives of Gorno-Badakhshan, including many Pamiris, were forcefully transferred to southwest Tajikistan in the 1950s. Gorno-Badakhshan annexed portion of Gharm Oblast's territory in 1955.

When the Tajik civil war broke out in 1992, Gorno-Badakhshan proclaimed independence from the Tajik Republic. During the civil war, competing parties killed numerous Pamiris, and Gorno-Badakhshan became an opposition stronghold. Later, the Gorno-Badakhshan administration backed down. Gorno-Badakhshan remains a Tajik autonomous region. To resolve a 130-year-old dispute, Tajikistan agreed in 2011 to abandon China's claims to about 28,000 km2 (11,000 sq mi) of Tajikistani territory.

In 2012, the Tajik military clashed with militants loyal to former warlord Tolib Ayombekov, who was suspected of killing a Tajik general. The arrests of ethnic Pamiris in the area in 2018 and 2020 heightened ethnic tensions.

Counties and regions
Darvoz District is the province's western tip. Most of west-central Gorno-Badakhshan is divided by river valleys that drain into the Panj River. Districts are river valleys. Murghob District is located in the province's eastern portion, on a bleak plateau surrounded by mountains.

Darvoz (westernmost, north)
Vanj (west, north)
Rushon dt (west, center)
Shughnon (west, center)
Roshtqal'a (west, south)
Ishkoshim (west, southernmost)
Murghob (eastern two-thirds)
GBAR is located in the country's east, bordering China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province, and Kyrgyzstan's Osh Region. The region's western boundary lies with the DRP, while its southern point (Darvoz District) borders the Khatlon Region. The highest mountains are in the Pamirs (ancient Mount Imeon), which is known as the world's roof, and three of the five 7,000-meter peaks in formerly Soviet Central Asia are here, including Ismoil Somoni Peak (7,495 m), Ibn Sina Peak (7,134 m), on the border with Kyrgyzstan, and Peak Korzhenevskaya (7,495 m) (7,105 m).