Kiribati

THE REPUBLIC OF Kiribati consists of 33 atolls straddling the equator and the INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE. The country is composed of the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Line Islands. The Gilbert Islands are made up of 17 atolls, are home to the majority of the population, include the capital Bairiki, and harbor the once phosphorous-rich island of Banaba. The Phoenix Islands are composed of 8 atolls, none of which has a permanent population. These islands were part of a government relocation program in the 1930s and 1940s as an answer to overcrowding on other islands, yet by 1952 the plan was considered a failure.

Resurrection of a similar plan began in 1995 and may lead to future permanent settlements. The Line Islands, of which only three of the eight are inhabited, include the largest of the islands, Kiritimati (CHRISTMAS ISLAND). Kiritimati is the largest atoll in the world and encompasses approximately half of the Kiribati landmass. A remote country, Kiribati is primarily composed of atolls with little variation in topography. The reefs, flats, and lagoons surrounding the atolls are natural attractions for the growing tourism industry. Global warming issues and the resulting rising sea levels have become a concern for the nation, as most of the country is at sea level. The climate is tropical with the potential for typhoons occurring primarily from November to March.

The majority of the population is of Micronesian ancestry with many of the ancestors originating from Tonga and Fiji. English is the official language, while IKiribati is widely spoken. In 1892, the British proclaimed the island group a British protectorate. From 1963 until 1979, the islanders were given an advisory position in the political decisions of the nation and gained final independence from the British on July 12, 1979. With the independence came the name change from the Gilbert Islands to Kiribati, which is the local translation for the Gilberts.

This sovereign democratic republic is resided over by a president, composed of three administrative units that are split into six districts and 21 island councils, and holds a parliament consisting of 42 representatives. Local affairs are handled by local councils. Prior to 1995, the islands were split by the international date line (180 degrees longitude), but in a unilateral move, Kiribati moved the international date line so the entire country could share the same time zone.

The economy is presently based on copra and fish exports, the granting of fishing rights to foreigners, the remittance of income from overseas workers, and international aid. Tourism has become a major export earner bringing in approximately one-fifth of the GDP. The local currency is the Australian dollar.

Mount Kilimanjaro

A MAJESTIC ROCKY GIANT, Mount Kilimanjaro is crowned by an icecap, impressively dominating the scenery. Mount Kilimanjaro towers above the Masai Steppe or the Great Rift Valley, which is believed to be the site of the origin of humankind. Pictures that shaped our imagination of East Africa are firmly connected to Kilimanjaro. The highest mountain of Africa is a volcanic massif situated in the territory of northeastern TANZANIA. The mountain consists of lava-dominated shield volcanoes and has three main volcanic centers, named Shira, Kibo, and Mawenzi. The highest point of the Kilimanjaro at the crater Kibo is called Uhuru Peak. At 19,340 ft (5,895 m) above sea level, it is Africa’s highest elevation point. Mawenzi (east of Kibo) rises to 16,896 ft (5,149 m), and Shira (west of Kibo) to 13,000 ft (3,962 m).

Kilimanjaro is a very young volcanic massif: it started to grow less than 1 million years ago and ceased to grow about 450,000 to 300,000 years ago. Volcanic activity subsequently became sporadic, and today the inner crater of the Kibo shows only residual activity. The last blow of ash from the Kibo could be witnessed probably about 200 years ago. The volcanoes of the Kilimanjaro are part of a chain of Cenozoic volcanoes in East Africa. The major factors influencing the volcanic activity of this area are the PLATE TECTONICS of the East African Rift System (EARS), which marks the lines along which the eastern subplate is separating from western subplate.

Kilimanjaro rises from 2,297 ft (700 m) above sea level to its highest peak in a relatively confined space, which stretches from east to west about 53 mi (85 km) and from north to south about 50 mi (80 km). It is thus an ideal example of the geomorphologic and ecological change in different altitudes and is characterized by a distinctive differentiation of the natural area. Five major vegetation zones can be found at Kilimanjaro: the lower slopes; the tropical mist- and mountain-forest zone between 5,905 and 9,187 ft (1,800 to 2,800 m); the low alpine zone with heath and moorland; the highland desert; and the summit. Fertile volcanic soils and good climatic conditions allow a variety of crops to grow in the Kilimanjaro region. This resulted in manifold and diversified pre- and early-colonial agricultural activities of the Chagga, the native people who inhabit the region. The colonial and postcolonial agriculture focused increasingly on the industrialized production of the cash crops banana and coffee. The consequences subsequently led to a fundamental economical and structural change, extensive clearings and destruction of forest and pasture land, increasing erosion, and high population growth. 

Another factor with major economic and ecological impact for the Kilimanjaro region is mountain tourism. Hans Meyer, a German colonial geographer and rich heir of a huge Leipzig publishing house, first ascended the Kibo crater in 1889 and called it Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze (since 1962, Uhuru Peak). Since this first ascent of Kilimanjaro, more and more mountaineers have been attracted by the mountain. 

Each year, almost 20,000 tourists try to ascend the summit. Added to the high number of local guides and porters who are hired to succeed in this endeavor, a yearly total of more than 70,000 people climb up the mountain through ecologically sensitive terrain. Negative side effects of the economic benefits are the inevitable damages to the environment, although since the 1970s the main area of the Kilimanjaro enjoys the status of a national park. Moreover, for reasons of global warming, the impressive ice sheets and glaciers of the mountain (only 10 years ago, glaciers covered most of its summit) have been receding rapidly. More than 80 percent of the icecap that crowned the mountain when it was first thoroughly surveyed in 1912 is now gone. If recession continues at the present rate, it is projected that the glaciers of the Kilimanjaro, the last glaciers of Africa, are in serious threat of vanishing in the next 15 years.

Khartoum

KHARTOUM IS THE capital city and administrative region of the Republic of the SUDAN, located at the confluence of the Blue and White NILE rivers. Khartoum is the second-largest city in North Africa, with an estimated population of 2.5 million in the city proper, and up to 7 million in the Greater Khartoum district, which includes Khartoum General, Khartoum North, and Omdurman, each city linked by bridges. Khartoum has a thriving market in cotton products, woven textiles, and knitwear and is a railroad hub that facilitates the transportation of a number of goods, including glass, tile, foodstuffs, gum, and oil. Khartoum has an international airport and two major universities.

Khartoum was officially founded in 1821 as an Egyptian army camp and the base of operations for the Ottoman conquest of the Sudan. Muhammad Ali, the Turkish pasha of Egypt, conquered the portion of the Sudan originally controlled by the Funj Empire in order to take advantage of the region’s vast human and economic resources and made Khartoum a depot for the Arab slave trade in Africa as well as a major mercantile center. Khartoum remained under Egyptian military occupation until 1881, when Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi (divinely guided seeker of justice) of the Sudanese people, staged a rebellion that resulted in the city’s liberation.

Ahmad and his followers, the Madhists, took advantage of Egypt’s instability in the wake of the British conquest of Northeast Africa but were themselves soon involved in it directly as a British company under General Charles Gordon, who arrived to take the city in 1884. He arrived at Khartoum on February 18, with orders to evacuate a small force of Egyptian soldiers trapped there, but decided to mount an offensive against the Madhist rebels instead, believing that he had the resources to defend the city. Gordon’s tactical error led to a 10-month siege on his company that eventually resulted in his death on January 26, 1885, after the Madhists broke his defenses, destroying much of the city in the process. Khartoum was eventually retaken by the British under Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener in 1898, which marked the advent of joint British and Egyptian colonial rule that lasted until Sudan gained its independence in 1956.

The greater Khartoum area has experienced its troubles internally and with the world postindependence. It is houses one of the largest refugee populations in the world, largely the result of civil wars in the region. Oil interests have done little to help the city’s growing problems, especially escalating poverty resulting from overpopulation and lack of resources. Slums are a major problem in Khartoum. In 1998, a pharmaceutical company in Khartoum was bombed by the UNITED STATES, as it was believed to have been a chemical weapons factory for terrorist groups. Khartoum has been regarded as a center for potential terrorist activity, though no direct evidence has been found directly linking the city’s government with any terrorist organization.

Kenya

KENYA, WHICH LIES astride the equator on the eastern coast of Africa, is bordered in the north by SUDAN and ETHIOPIA, in the east by SOMALIA, on the southeast by the INDIAN OCEAN, on the southwest by TANZANIA and to the west by Lake Victoria and UGANDA. The country is notable for its’ geographical variety. While most people immediately think of African wildlife and great expanses of GRASSLAND, the land is made up of several distinctive geographical regions.

The first is a narrow, low-lying, fertile coastal strip along the shores of the Indian Ocean that is fringed with coral reefs and islands. A series of low hills separates the coastal region from the vast bush-covered plains of the eastern plateau forelands, which sprawl between the central highlands to the west and the coastal strip on the east and slope gently toward the sea.

In the southwestern corner of the country is the Lake Victoria basin, which extends eastward from the lake to the central rift highlands, in which about 85percent of the population and the majority of economic enterprise are concentrated. The central rift highlands run from north to south down the western half of Kenya and are split by the famous Rift Valley into two sections, the Mau Escarpment on the west and the Aberdare Range and accompanying highlands on the east. The Mau Escarpment in the west rises above 9,000 ft (2,740 m) and stretches for more than 200 mi (320 km) northward from the Tanzanian border to the westcentral border with Uganda.

The Aberdare Range to the east, which forms the eastern border of the Rift Valley, rises to nearly 10,000 ft (3,050 m). In the high plateau area, known as the Kenya Highlands, lie Mt. Kenya 17,058 ft (5,200 m), Mt. Elgon 14,176 ft (4,322m), and the Aberdare Range rising to over 13,000 ft (3,963 m). The plateau is bisected from north to south by the Rift Valley. The Great Africa Rift Valleys runs from North to South through the whole of Kenya. The Kenyan Rift Valley is a section of a 3,700 mi (6,000 km) rift system that stretches from the Dead Sea in the MIDDLE EAST, south through the RED SEA, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, MALAWI, and into MOZAMBIQUE. The whole area contains several lakes, extinct volcanoes, and numerous small game parks. The scenery in the Rift Valley is breathtaking, particularly at the viewing points just north of Limuru and Naivasha or from the top of the Mau escarpment. In the south, the valley narrows and deepens with walled escarpments rising 2,000 to 3,050 ft (610 to 930 m) above the valley floor, while in the west, the plateau descends to the plains that border Lake Victoria.

A network of small, seasonal rivers and streams drains most of the Kenyan landscape. Kenya’s most important river, the Tana, rises in the central highlands and drains some 16,300 square mi (42,200 square km), roughly 7 percent of the country’s total land area, before flowing into the Indian Ocean. Northern Kenya receives little rainfall, but regions in the southern part of the country are plentifully watered. Kenya has two rainy seasons: the long rains from late March to May and the short rains from October to December. Evergreen forests can be found in the highlands along with wide expanses of bamboo grass. East and west of the highlands, the vegetation gives way to low trees that are casually scattered throughout a predominantly grassy landscape. Semidesert conditions exist below 3,000 ft (915 m) in the north, with thick expanses of thornbush interspersed with massive baobabs trees. In the coastal belt, dense, high bush alternates with limited areas of forest.

Kenya is noted for its wildlife, safaris, and much of our image of Africa. Game and national parks, such as the Masai Mara National Reserve and the Ambosili National Park, are filled with lions, leopards, wild dogs, elephants, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, zebras, antelopes, gazelles, hippopotamuses, and crocodiles. Equally famous, but not a part of Kenya, are the Serengeti National Park and Mt. KILIMANJARO, both of which lie just across the border in Tanzania. Only about 4 percent of the land is arable and nearly all of this is cropped, mainly with corn and other grains.

Kenya became an independent country in 1963. Jomo Kenyatta, a member of the Kenya African Nation Union (KANU), became the country’s first president on December 12, 1964. Kenya soon became a one-party state, after the voluntarily dissolving of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). After Kenyatta’s death in 1978, Vice President Daniel arap Moi became the interim president. Under Moi’s presidency, political oppression continued with the outlawing of political activities. Thus, many aspiring politicians and political parties went underground for many years. Sensing an opportune time because of resentment of the government in the 1990s, many of the underground parties emerged to challenge KANU.

Finally in 2002, a coalition of opposition parties ended the 24-year presidency of arap Moi. Mwai Kibaki became the country’s third president. In 1998, terrorists bombed the American Embassy in Nairobi. Many people, particularly Kenyans, were killed in the horrific violence. The incident further damaged the Kenyan struggling tourism industry. A major challenge to Kenya’s stability is population growth. With so many people being added to the total population, there will be severe pressure on land, and subsequent intensity in the rural-urban migration phenomenon.

Kentucky

NICKNAMED FOR the bluegrass that covers much of this U.S. state, and known for its whiskey and for the Kentucky Derby that takes place annually at Churchill Downs in Louisville, the Commonwealth of Kentucky was named for the Kentucky River, which was thought to have been named from the Iroquoian word(s) for either “meadowland” or “land of tomorrow.” Kentucky is bounded on the north by the states of ILLINOIS, INDIANA, and OHIO, on the south by TENNESSEE, on the east by VIRGINIA and WEST VIRGINIA, and on the west by MISSOURI.

The Ohio River runs along the entire northern boundary of Kentucky, and the MISSISSIPPI RIVER runs along the western boundary. The total area of Kentucky is 39,728 square mi (102,895 square km). The state ranks 36th in size and 25th in population among the 50 states. Kentucky’s largest cities are Lexington, Louisville, Owensboro, Bowling Green, Covington, Hopkinsville, Frankfurt (the capital), Henderson, Richmond, and Jefferstown.

Approximately 679 square mi (1,758 square km) of Kentucky are covered by water. In addition to the Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio, Kentucky’s rivers include the Cumberland and the Green. Most of Kentucky’s lakes were created by damming river waters, including Barkley Lake, Rough River Lake, Green River Lake, Dewey Lake, and Cumberland Lake. Kentucky has a number of significant waterfalls. The average elevation of Kentucky is 750 ft (228 m) above sea level. The highest point in the state is 4,139 ft (1,261 m) above sea level at Black Mountain, and the lowest point is 261 ft (79 m) above sea level at the Mississippi River. The state is approximately 380 mi (611 km) from east to west and approximately 140 mi (225 km) from north to south.

Kentucky’s climate is temperate with annual temperatures ranging from 52 degrees F (11 degrees C) in the northeastern part of the state to 58 degrees F (14 degrees C) in the southwestern section. Temperatures throughout the year range from below freezing in the winter to warm and humid in the summer. Annual precipitation is approximately 45 in (114 cm). Winter snow averages range from 40 in (101 cm) in Kentucky’s highest elevations to 25 in (63 cm) in the northeast, to 10 in (25 cm) in the southwest. Kentucky is frequently beset by storms, particularly from March to September.

The geographic area of Kentucky is varied, encompassing five distinct physiological regions: the Bluegrass Region, the Cumberland Plateau, the Western Coal Field, the Pennyroyal Region, and the Jackson Purchase Region. The north central section of Kentucky falls within the Bluegrass Region, sometimes called the Lexington Plain, which extends into the neighboring state of Ohio.

Much of the Bluegrass Region is filled with rolling meadows and low, steep sandstone hills known as knobs, which are found in the Knobs Region that forms the eastern, southern, and western sections of the Bluegrass Region. The Knobs Region separates the Bluegrass Region from the Cumberland or Mississippian Plateau. The Cumberland Plateau is part of the Appalachian Plateau, which extends along much of the eastern part of the UNITED STATES from NEW YORK to ALABAMA.

In Kentucky, the area is characterized by mountains, plateaus, and valleys that are underlain with sandstone, shale, and limestone. Kentucky’s Cumberland, Pine, and Black mountain ranges are located in the Cumberland Plateau. The section of the plateau known as the Eastern Coal Fields is a mountainous area covered with forests and streams. These mountain ridges are frequently crossed by gaps such as the wellknown Cumberland Gap. Much of the Daniel Boone National Forest lies at the western end of the Eastern Coal Fields.

The northwestern section of Kentucky contains the Western Coal Field, which is a hilly area that lies within the Illinois Basin, extending to the Ohio River on the north and to the Pennyroyal Region on the east, west, and south. The Western Coal Field is named for the large deposits of coal that appear throughout the area. The soil on the borders of the Ohio River is highly fertile. The Pennyroyal Region, sometimes referred to as the Pennyrile Region for the small herb that grows in the area or, alternately, as the Highland Rim, covers a stretch of land between the southern border of Kentucky in the Appalachian Plateau to Kentucky Lake. The southern section of the Pennyroyal Region is made up of flat lands interspersed with occasional rolling hills, while the northern section is comprised mostly of rocky ridges containing numerous underground caves and tunnels. The best known of the caves is Mammoth Cave. A treeless area within the center of the Pennyroyal Region is known as The Barrens.

The Jackson Purchase Region is located at Kentucky’s western tip and is part of the Gulf Plains Region, which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois. The Jackson Purchase Region stretches to the Kentucky Lake in the east, to Illinois in the north, and to the Mississippi River in the west. Low hills and flooded plains make up the land in the Jackson Purchase Region. The Madrid Fault is located in this area. When earthquakes hit the area in 1811 and 1812, the Mississippi River began to flow backward, creating Reelfoot Lake.

Approximately 40 percent of Kentucky is forested. The coffee tree is the state tree. Kentucky hardwoods include oak, beech, hickory, maple, and walnut. Softwoods include cypress, hemlock, cedar, and pine. Flowering shrubs include buckeye, dogwood, laurel, azalea, rhododendron, redbud, blueberry, pennyroyal, and goldenrod (the state flower). Earlier in Kentucky’s history, bison and elk roamed the forest, but now the woods are filled with fox, groundhog, muskrat, opossum, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, and deer. In addition to the cardinal, which is the state bird, Kentucky is home to the eagle, egret, mockingbird, yellow-billed sapsucker, crow, kingfisher, and woodpecker. Migratory birds are also frequently seen in the area. Kentucky has four state forests and 59 state parks.

Agriculture dominated Kentucky’s economy until the middle of the 20th century when services and manufacturing gained prevalence. Tobacco, hay, corn, soybeans, wheat, fruit, dairy, and livestock are the major products produced by Kentucky farmers. Industries include motor vehicles (the state’s largest industry), health services, furniture, aluminum ware, brooms, apparel, lumber products, machinery, textiles, and iron and steel products. Kentucky’s most important mineral resources are bituminous coal, petroleum, natural gas, stone, sand and gravel, clay, fluorspar, gemstone, limestone, lead, zinc, and fluorite. Kentucky’s coal mines provide 85 percent of the state’s mineral income.

Kazakhstan

THE REPUBLIC OF Kazakhstan occupies the center of the Eurasian supercontinent, the second largest of the former Soviet republics and today the ninth-largest nation in the world. Most of its vast territory, stretching from the Caspian and Volga lowlands in the west to the ALTAI MOUNTAINS on the borders with CHINA, is flat, covered in arid semidesert or STEPPE. Its people have been nomadic herders for millennia but are now taking the lead in the development of industry, agriculture, and international trade for Central Asia.

Kazakhstan has no coastline, except for 1,174 mi (1,894 km) along the landlocked CASPIAN SEA. Its main trade corridor has therefore been across the land, connecting the commerce of its neighbors (RUSSIA, TURKMENISTAN, UZBEKISTAN, KYRGYZSTAN, and China), starting with the SILK ROAD in the Middle Ages, continuing with the development of railroads in the 20th century, and once again building its transportation links with China today. The Kazakh people are a mixture of Turkic and Mongol nomadic tribes who ruled the region through interlocked, kin-based khanates until gradual annexation by the Russian Empire in the 18th century.

After a brief attempt at autonomy in the 1920s, the region became a Soviet Republic in 1936. The Soviets initiated intense agricultural and industrial development projects in the northern steppes during the 1950s, which brought numerous immigrants—Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, and others—who eventually out-numbered the native peoples. The Kazakhs declared their independence in 1991, and the population has once again shifted, through both mass emigration and a higher birthrate among ethnic Kazakhs.

THREE REGIONS

Geographically, the country is mostly homogeneous, a great flat tableland of lowlands, plains, and plateaus. This can be broken up into three basic regions: the Volga and Caspian lowlands of the west (with the narrow, low Mugodzhar Mountains), the Turgai Plateau, and the Kazakh Steppe. The Turgai Plateau is characterized by a central depression with a chain of small lakes. Most of the area’s rivers flow into these lakes, some of which evaporate and disappear completely during the dry season.

The Ulu-Tau mountains divide this area from the eastern third of the country, the Kazakh Steppe, which is mostly flat with a few scattered massifs. The primary of these elevated areas divides the watershed between the upper Irtysh River valley (whose waters flow across the West Siberian Plain all the way to the Arctic Sea) and Lake BALKASH, one of the largest lakes in the world in area, but not in volume, since it is very shallow. Lake Balkash is also very salty and has very little wildlife. South of these broad semi-desert and steppe plains are the northern edges of one of the great deserts of Central Asia, the Kyzyl Kum. Across this desert runs the other major river of Kazakhstan, the Syr Darya, which flows into the ARAL SEA. To the east and south rise the great mountain chains that divide Central Asia from China, the Altai, and Tian Shan.

Along the northern edges of Kazakhstan, several large cities were developed under the Soviet regime, the mining and industrial heart of Central Asia. Kazakhstan is a leading producer of coal, iron ore, manganese, copper, and many other minerals. It is oil and gas, however, that hold the most promise for the Kazakhs, with reserves estimated to put Kazakhstan into the top 10 oil producers in the world by 2015, especially around the Caspian Sea basin—the Tenghiz field ranks as one of the largest deposits in the world. Agriculture is still a major part of Kazakh economy, chiefly in grain exports and livestock.

Actively courting western investment and friendship, the Kazakhs declared their territory nuclear free in 1995, and the new national capital (Astana, moved in 1998, formerly known as Akmola, then as Tselinograd) lies inside a special economic zone with reduced trade barriers and tax incentives for investors. Russia continues to run the space center Baykonur Cosmodrome (formerly called Leninsk), but the Kazakh government is encouraging greater participation by ethnic Kazakhs.

Kashmir

KASHMIR IS THE name given to the Vale of Kashmir, a valley situated on the Jhelum River between the Pir Panjal range and the main range of the HIMALAYAS. By extension, the name is used to refer to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and to a portion of the old preindependence territory that included what is now called Northern Areas and Azad (Free) Kashmir in PAKISTAN.

In addition, INDIA claims a 14,500-square-mile (37,554-square-km) section of the Tibetan plateau, “Aksai Chin,” as part of the old state of Kashmir. Kashmir was also a state under British soveriegnty until 1947 when the Hindu maharaja of the largely Muslim state attempted to obtain a degree of independence for his land by not joining Hindu India or Muslim Pakistan. The delay led to disputed territory between the two powers. The Indian government claimed that the Hindu ruler of Kashmir state had signed an Instrument of Accession to India, although the original document has never been seen, nor is there any evidence to indicate that the maharaja signed the document on the day cited, as he was being driven from Srinagar to Jammu. The state fell into outside hands, once again having been under the rule of the Moghuls and the Sikhs in previous centuries. Although the United Nations agreed to the suggestion of a plebiscite to which India also agreed, no such vote has ever taken place.

India has claimed territory, the former Gilgit Agency and Baltistan, that is now under Pakistani control and known as the Northern Areas. A small portion of this agency in the extreme north and lying in the watershed draining into CHINA was deeded to China by Pakistan in 1964. At no time did Gilgit Agency come under direct Kashmir rule, because the British kept a civil and military delegation in the agency prior to independence. Because of the continuing disputes of jurisdiction of Kashmir, Pakistan has agitated for a plebiscite, which now seems remote. Armed conflict by India with China and Pakistan has resulted in small wars in 1962 with China and in 1965 and 1971 with Pakistan. A transitory border, “The Line of Control,” was established but another dispute broke out in 1984 when Pakistan issued permits to tourists into territory that India claimed as Kashmir India territory. This dispute revolved around the Siachen glacier, the headwaters for the Nubra River flowing into the Shyok River, a tributary of the Indus.

This continued territorial dispute mars the attributes of Kashmir in its several guises today. Geographically, Jammu is in the Punjab lowlands and is Hindu or Sikh. The Vale of Kashmir is almost all Muslim today, the Hindu castes having left. Territorially, the largest area is Ladakh in the trans-Himalaya Tibetan plateau, where local culture is similar to that of Tibet but where there are a substantial number of Muslims, both Sunni and Shia. These people formerly conducted caravan trade across the infamous “Five Passes” route, that is, five passes over 18,000 ft (5,500 m), on the route from Leh in Ladakh to Sainju Bazaar down on the edge of the Takla Makan Desert bowl of XINJIANG province in western China. This lucrative trading route was the reason for the prosperity of old Kashmir. Its geography created a passland, that is, a state through which passes were essential for its commercial existence.

The route was dangerous with robbers from Shimshall in the Hunza area pillaging pack ponies and Bactrian camels who often died from lardug, high-altitude pulmonary edema. The hybrid Buddhist-Muslim trader community in Leh and along the trading route ensured the viability of the caravans. Between Srinagar and Leh, the Zoji pass was snowed in for six months of the year, thereby disrupting traffic. Another route from Srinagar went north over the Burzil pass down the Astor valley, over the Indus, and north to Gilgit. Because of the narrow defiles north of Gilgit and Hunza and over the crest of the Karakorum range little interregional trade was carried over this route. Transhumants of sheep and goats still migrate seasonally in the Pir Panjal and Himalaya mountains.

The Vale of Kashmir was once a major tourist destination, with houseboats on the Dal and Wular lakes nestling below high mountains with local products for sale. Many Indian films customarily showed Kashmir scenes. Trout fishing on the Liddar River on the Hindu pilgrimage route beyond Pahlgam was famous. Traditional woodworking, silk making, and wool products were highly sought. Agriculture is marginal, with rice, maize, peas, and beans widespread. The cultivation of saffron is a local specialty. Basic foodstuffs are imported from the Punjab. Stone fruits, cherries, peaches, apricots, and walnuts and almonds are exported to the plains of India through the Banihal tunnel, the main supply route from the Vale to India. Wildlife has suffered extreme depredation in recent years because of the prevalence of military weapons among divisive political factions. The noble sambar deer is severely depleted; ibex wild goat and urial wild sheep and blue sheep still remain in places in Ladakh, although markhor seems to have disappeared. Brown bear and Himalayan black bear now have their ranges severely curtailed. The elusive snow leopard still exists in the Markha valley in Ladakh, where a major conservation effort is under way.

In the past three decades, language has changed significantly. Kashmiri, an Indo-Aryan hill language cognate with the hill languages spoken through northern Pakistan to Pashai in Kabul Kohestan in Afghanistan, reports a decline in the number of speakers. Bazaar languages, Punjabi in the Vale of Kashmir, like Pashto in northern Pakistan and Farsi in Kabul Kohestan, have smothered regional languages in everyday usage. English schools are ubiquitous. Two villages in Ladakh sitting on the “Line of Control,” Dah and Hannu, retain pre-Islamic, pre-Buddhist cultural celebrations to this day. Nineteenth-century linguists referred to these villages, and others, as Dardic, although there is no validity to this term today. Eurocentric myths about the “Dards” being the true Aryans still surface today in Ladakh.