Pamirs

Pamirs, also called Pamir, highland region of Central Asia. The Pamir mountain area centres on the nodal orogenic uplift known as the Pamir Knot, from which several south-central Asian mountain ranges radiate, including the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram Range, the Kunlun Mountains, and the Tien Shan. Most of the Pamirs lie within Tajikistan, but the fringes penetrate Afghanistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan. The core of the Pamirs is in the highlands of Tajikistan, with the highest mountains in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous oblast (province).

The word pamir in the language of the region denotes the high undulating grasslands of the eastern portion of the mountains, especially where they abut Afghanistan and China. Deep river valleys mark the boundaries of the Pamirs in the north beyond the ridges of the Trans-Alai Range, and the valleys of the Vākhān region (Wakhan Corridor) of Afghanistan form the southern limit. The Sarykol pamir in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in western China bounds the eastern margin, and a series of southwestern-aligned valleys that eventually drain into the Vakhsh and Panj rivers serrate the western boundary.