Karakarun highway

link

"KKH" redirects here. For other uses, see KKH (disambiguation).

Coordinates: 35°36′N 74°39′E

N-35

Karakoram Highway

Route information

Part of G314 

Maintained by NHA, SASAC

Length: 1,300 km (800 mi)

Pakistan: 887 km (551 mi)

China: 413 km (257 mi)

Existed: 1966 – present

History: Completed in 1979, open to the public since 1986

Major junctions

North end: Kashgar, Xinjiang, China

  N-5

N-15

South end: Hasan Abdal, Punjab, Pakistan

Location

Major cities: Haripur, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Besham, Dassu, Chilas, Gilgit, Aliabad, Gulmit, Sust, Tashkurgan, Upal, Kashgar

Highway system

National Highways of Pakistan

Motorways of Pakistan

Karakoram Highway

Chinese name

Simplified Chinese 喀喇昆仑公路

[show]Transcriptions

Urdu name

Urdu شاہراہ قراقرم śāharāha qarāqaram

UN map of Siachin

Actual Ground Position Line shown with yellow-coloured dotted line

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is one of the highest paved international roads in the world.[1] It connects the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China and Gilgit–Baltistan of Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass, located at 36°51′00″N 75°25′40″E, at an elevation of 4,693 metres (15,397 ft).[2][3]

Connecting China's Xinjiang region with Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, the road is a popular tourist attraction. Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World.[4][5][6]

The Karakoram Highway is known informally as the KKH; within Pakistan it is known officially as the N-35, while within China, it is known officially as China National Highway 314 (G314). It is also a part of the Asian Highway AH4.

Contents  [hide] 

1 History

2 The highway

2.1 Pakistani section

3 Karakoram Highway reconstruction

3.1 Karakorum Highway Realignment (China-Pakistan Friendship Tunnels)

3.2 Chinese section

3.3 Major towns

4 Tourism

4.1 Mountains and glaciers

4.2 Rivers and lakes

4.3 Rock art and petroglyphs

4.4 Travel

4.5 Bus service between Gilgit and Kashghar

5 Weather

6 See also

7 References

8 External links

History[edit]

Karakoram Highway route map

Summits of Karakoram Mountain Range as seen from the Karakoram Highway near Nagar, Gilgit.

The Karakoram Highway, also known as the Friendship Highway in China, was built by the governments of Pakistan and China. It was started in 1959 and was completed and opened to the public in 1979. About 810 Pakistanis and about 200 Chinese workers lost their lives,[7] mostly in landslides and falls, while building the highway. The Chinese workers who died during the construction are buried in the Chinese cemetery in Gilgit. The route of the KKH traces one of the many paths of the ancient Silk Road.

On the Pakistani side, the road was constructed by FWO (Frontier Works Organisation), employing the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers. The Engineer-in-Chief's Branch of the Pakistani Army completed a project documenting the history of the highway. The book History of Karakoram Highway was written by Brigadier (Retired) Muhammad Mumtaz Khalid in two volumes. In the first volume the author discusses the land and the people, the pre-historic communication system in the Northern Areas, the need for an all-weather road link with Gilgit, and the construction of Indus Valley Road. The second volume records events leading to the conversion of the Indus Valley Road to the Karakoram Highway, the difficulties in its construction, and the role of Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers and their Chinese counterparts in its construction.[8]

The highway[edit]

Jingle trucks on Karakoram Highway.

The highway, connecting the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Kashmir to the ancient Silk Road, runs approximately 1,300 km (810 mi) from Kashgar, a city in the Xinjiang region of China, to Abbottabad, of Pakistan. An extension of the highway southwest from Abbottabad, in the form of the N-35 highway, meets the Grand Trunk Road, N-5, at Hassanabdal, Pakistan.

The highway cuts through the collision zone between the Eurasian and Indian plates, where China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan come within 250 kilometres (160 mi) of each other. Owing largely to the extremely sensitive state of the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan, the Karakoram Highway has strategic and military importance to these nations, but particularly Pakistan and China.

On 30 June 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Pakistani National Highway Authority (NHA) and China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to rebuild and upgrade the Karakoram Highway. According to SASAC, the width will be expanded from 10 to 30 metres (33 to 98 ft), and its transport capacity will be increased three times its current capacity. In addition, the upgraded road will be designed to particularly accommodate heavy-laden vehicles and extreme weather conditions.

China and Pakistan are planning to link the Karakoram Highway to the southern port of Gwadar in Balochistan through the Chinese-aided Gwadar-Dalbandin railway, which extends to Rawalpindi.

On 4 January 2010, the KKH was closed in the Hunza Valley, eliminating through traffic to China except by small boats. A massive landslide 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) upstream from Hunza's capital of Karimabad created the potentially unstable Attabad Lake, which reached 22 kilometres (14 mi) in length and over 100 metres (330 ft) in depth by the first week of June 2010 when it finally began flowing over the landslide dam. The landslide destroyed parts of villages while killing many inhabitants. The subsequent lake displaced thousands and inundated over 20 kilometres (12 mi) of the KKH including the 310 metres (1,020 ft) long KKH bridge 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of Gulmit.[9][10][11]

It is highly questionable whether the lake, which reached 27 kilometres (17 mi) in length in 2011, will drain. Goods from and to further north are transported over the lake by small vessels, to be reloaded onto trucks at the other end.[12] In July 2012 Pakistan began constructing a revised route around the lake at a higher elevation with five new tunnels, with total length of 7.12 km, and two new bridges. The work was contracted out to the China Road & Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and was completed in September 2015—see Karakorum Highway Realignment (China-Pakistan Friendship Tunnels) below.[13]