Badakhshan Province in the context of "Lake Zorkul"

The Wakhan Corridor (Dari: دالان واخان, romanized: Dālān-i Wāxān; Pashto: واخان دهلېز, romanized: Wāxān dahlez) is a narrow strip of territory in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. This corridor stretches eastward, connecting Afghanistan to Xinjiang, China. It also separates the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan in the north from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan regions in Pakistan in the south. This high mountain valley, which rises to a maximum altitude of 4,923 m (16,152 ft), serves as the source of both the Panj and Pamir rivers, which converge to form the larger Amu Darya River. For countless centuries, a vital trade route has traversed this valley, facilitating the movement of travelers to and from East, South, and Central Asia.

The corridor was formed after an 1893 out of British territory from now Pakistan after an agreement between Mortimer Durand of the British Raj and Emir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan, so that the Russian dominion, now Tajikistan would not touch British dominion, now Pakistan. This agreement also created the Durand Line which today forms the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was last conquered by the Durrani Empire in 1763. At the time it was carved out, the narrow strip acted as a buffer zone between the Russian Empire and the British Empire (specifically the regions of Russian Turkestan, now in Tajikistan, and the northern part of the British Raj, now in Pakistan). Its eastern end bordered China's Xinjiang region, then claimed by the Qing dynasty.

The Afghanistan–China border is a 92-kilometre-long (57 mi) boundary between Afghanistan and China, beginning at the tripoint of both countries with the Pakistan's federally administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, following the watershed along the Mustagh Range, and ending at the tripoint with Tajikistan. This short border is in the far northeast of Afghanistan, distant from much of the country or urban areas in either country, at the end of the long, narrow Wakhan Corridor. The Chinese side of the border is in the Chalachigu Valley. The border is crossed by several mountain passes, including Wakhjir Pass in the south and Tegermansu Pass in the north.

Both sides of the border are protected areas: Wakhan National Park in Wakhan District, Badakhshan Province on the Afghan side and Taxkorgan Nature Reserve in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on the Chinese side.

The Pamir Mountains are a range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, the Karakoram, the Kunlun, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalayas. They are among the world's highest mountains.

Much of the range lies in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan. Spanning the border parts of four countries, to the south, they border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan Province, Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Pakistan. To the north, they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the east, they extend to the range that includes China's Kongur Tagh, in the "Eastern Pamirs", separated by the Yarkand valley from the Kunlun Mountains.

The Pamir River is a shared river located in the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan and in the Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan. It is a tributary of the Panj River, and forms the northern boundary of Afghanistan's Wakhan District.

The river has its sources in the Pamir Mountains in the far eastern part of Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. It flows between the Alichur mountain range in the north and the Wakhan District in the south. It starts from the Lake Zorkul, at a height of 4,130 meters, and then flows west, and later southwest. Near the town of Langar, at 2,799 m, its confluences with the Wakhan River forms the Panj River. The Pamir forms the boundary between Afghanistan and Tajikistan along its entire length. Northwest of Langar is the 6,726 m (22,067 ft) high Karl Marx Peak and Friedrich Engels Peak (6,507 m (21,348 ft)). A road runs along the river on the Tajik side to Khargush where it turns north to join the Pamir Highway. A road of lower quality continues east past Zorkul, almost to the Chinese border.

The Wakhjir Pass, also spelled Vakhjir Pass, is a mountain pass on the Afghanistan–China border, between the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor. It is the only potentially navigable pass between Afghanistan and China in the modern era. It links the Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan with the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, China, at an altitude of 4,923 m (16,152 ft). As of 2025, the pass has no official border crossing point. With a difference of 3.5 hours, the Afghanistan–China border has the sharpest official change of clocks of any international frontier (UTC+04:30 in Afghanistan to UTC+08:00, in China). China refers to the pass as South Wakhjir Pass (Chinese: 南瓦根基达坂), as there is a northern pass on the Chinese side.

Wakhan National Park is a national park in northeastern Afghanistan. Established in 2014, the park encompasses the entire Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province, extending along the Wakhan Corridor between the Pamir Mountains and the Hindu Kush, bordering the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region of Tajikistan to the north, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan to the south, and the Xinjiang autonomous region of China to the east.

Flora and fauna in the Wakhan National Park include some 600 plant species, the snow leopard, lynx, wolf, brown bear, stone marten, red fox, Pallas's cat, ibex, Marco Polo sheep, and urial. Remote and largely above the tree line, poaching and overgrazing, rather than mining and logging, currently pose the main threats. Around 15,000 Afghans of ethnic Wakhi and Kyrgyz background reside in the area. Foreigners must have an Afghan visa to tour the area.

Kashgar Prefecture, also known as Kashi Prefecture, is a prefecture located in southwestern Xinjiang, China, located in the Tarim Basin region (roughly the southern half of Xinjiang). It has an area of 112,057 km (43,265 sq mi) and 4,496,377 inhabitants at the 2020 census with a population density of 35.5 inhabitants/km. The capital of the prefecture is the city of Kashgar which has a population 506,640.

Kashgar Prefecture borders the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan, and Ladakh of India in the far south.