Tashkurgan
The ruins of a huge mudbrick fort still stand on the edge of
town, and although this one is estimated to be about 600 years
old, local lore says Tashkurgan has been a citadel for over 2300
years. The Greek philosopher-scientist Ptolemy (90 to 168 AD)
mentioned Tashkurgan in his Guide to Geography as a stop on the
road to China. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan Tsang wrote
about its fortress in the 7th century, when it was the furthest
frontier outpost of the Tang dynasty.
Afghan frontier
In 1893, the British priority of a strip of Afghan territory
between the Hindu Kush frontier and the Russian was accepted in
principle; in return the Russians got most of the Pamirs; the
Amir, who stood to lose by this arrangement, was mollified by
British concessions elsewhere on their joint frontier. Thus was
created that anomalous strip of Afghan territory known as the
Wakhan corridor. In 1895 a joint Anglo-Russian boundary commission
marked out its eastern extremities and, separating Pakistan from
the Tadjik region, it survives virtually untouched to this day.
