Badakhshan
Badakhshan
(bädäkhshän`, bədəkhshän`), province (1979 est. pop. 497,000), 17,011 sq mi (44,059 sq km), extreme NE Afghanistan, between the Hindu Kush Mts. and the Amu Darya River. The capital is FaizabadFaizabador Feyzabad
, city (1992 est. pop. 9,098), capital of Badakhshan prov., NE Afghanistan, on the Kokcha River. The chief commercial and administrative center of NE Afghanistan and the Pamir region, Faizabad also has rice and flour mills.
..... Click the link for more information. . Renowned for its mineral wealth, it is the world's chief source of lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone. The deposits have been worked for more than 3,000 years. Rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and gold have also been mined. Mountain goats and the famed Marco Polo wild sheep are hunted in the province. Some agriculture and sheep and goat herding are also practiced. In 1859 it became a part of Afghanistan. Badhakshan's most distinctive feature is the Vakhan (Wakhan Corridor), a long narrow panhandle that passes between Tajikistan in the north and Pakistan in the south, linking Afghanistan with the XinjiangXinjiang
or Sinkiang
[Chinese,=new frontier], officially Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Mandarin Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu), autonomous region (2010 pop. 21,813,334), c.637,000 sq mi (1,650,257 sq km), NW China.
..... Click the link for more information. region in China. Badakhshan was once part of the ancient Greek kingdom of BactriaBactria
, ancient Greek kingdom in central Asia. Its capital was Bactra, present-day Balkh in N Afghanistan. Before the Greek conquest, the region was an eastern province of the Persian Empire.
..... Click the link for more information. . Many of its inhabitants are Tajiks.
Badakhshan,
autonomous province, Tajikistan: see Gorno-BadakhsanGorno-Badakhshanor Badakhshan,
Tajik Kuhistoni Badakhshon, autonomous province (1991 est. pop. 167,100), c.24,600 sq mi (63,710 sq km), roughly constituting the eastern half of Tajikistan, in the Pamir.
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