Kohistan District, Pakistan in the context of "India plate"

The Indian plate (or India plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana 100 million years ago and began moving north, carrying Insular India with it. It was once fused with the adjacent Australian plate to form a single Indo-Australian plate, but recent studies suggest that India and Australia may have been separate plates for at least 3 million years. The Indian plate includes most of modern South Asia (the Indian subcontinent) and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean, including parts of South China, Indonesian islands, and extending up to but not including Ladakh, Kohistan, and Balochistan in Pakistan.

State of Swat (Urdu: رياست سوات) was a state established in 1849 by the Muslim saint Saidu Baba, also known as Akhund of Swat, and was ruled by Walis of Swat. It was recognized as a princely state in alliance with the British Raj between 1918 and 1947, after which the Akhwand acceded to the newly independent state of Pakistan. Swat continued to exist as an autonomous region until it was dissolved in 1969, and incorporated into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (formerly North-West Frontier Province). The area it covered is now divided among the present-day districts of Swat, Buner, Kohistan and Shangla.

Indus Kohistanis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group speaking the Indus Kohistani language. They mainly reside in Indus Kohistan, Hazara Division in northern Pakistan.

The Shina (Shina: ݜݨیاٗ, Ṣiṇyaá) or Gilgitis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group primarily residing in Gilgit–Baltistan and Indus Kohistan in Pakistan, as well as in the Gurez (Kishenganga Valley) and Dras regions of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in India. They speak an Indo-Aryan language, called Shina and their geographic area of predominance is referred to as Shenaki.

Shina (ݜݨیاٗ, Ṣiṇyaá, [ʂiɳjá]), also known by its exonym Gilgiti, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch in the Indo-European language family, primarily spoken by the Shina people, native to northern Pakistan, specifically Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan. A small community of Shina speakers is also found in India, in the Gurez valley of Jammu and Kashmir and in Dras valley of Ladakh. Outliers of Shina language such as Brokskat are found in Ladakh, Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir, Palula and Sawi in Chitral, Ushojo in the Swat Valley and Kalkoti in Dir.

It is one of the major regional languages of Pakistan, being the most-widely spoken one in Gilgit-Baltistan. It is also spoken outside of Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan by Shina communities in major metropolitan areas around the country, particularly Islamabad–Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar.