As the war in Afghanistan, though now in its 19th year, continues to wind down, we read less about the country.
It exists in its present configuration because it was a 19th-century borderland separating the Russian Empire in Central Asia from the British one in the Indian subcontinent.
This rivalry between these two powers became known as the “Great Game,” a term immortalized by Rudyard Kipling.
The delineation of the final borders of the buffer state of Afghanistan would end a period of enmity between them.
In the north, an agreement between the empires in 1873 effectively split the historic region of Wakhan by making the Panj and Pamir Rivers the border between Afghanistan and the Russian Empire. It was finalized by the 1895 Pamir Boundary Commission.
In the south, the Durand Line agreement of 1893 between Britain and Afghanistan marked the boundary between British India and Afghanistan. This left a narrow strip of land ruled by Afghanistan as a buffer between the two empires, which became known as the Wakhan Corridor.
It stretches from Afghan Badakhshan to the border with China, between modern-day Tajikistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan was considered by the British as an independent state at the time although the British controlled its foreign and diplomatic relations.
Though extremely remote and largely inaccessible, this odd border construction essentially served one important purpose in the geopolitical struggle between the two European powers by ensuring that the British and Russian Empires did not touch at any point.
The Wakhan Corridor, covering 8,936 square kilometres but in some places barely 15 kilometres across, is a part of the Pamir Mountain region. Its average elevation is about 5,400 metres.
Due to its altitude and extreme isolation, one author, Johannes Humlum, has characterized the corridor as “the most elevated, the wildest, the most inaccessible, and the least populated” place in Afghanistan.
The Panj River, 1,125 kilometres long, forms a considerable part of the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border.
Effectively, this border, stretching across most of northern Afghanistan, divided every ethnic group that depended on this river and its tributaries. Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Uzbeks all were divided between Russian (and later Soviet) Central Asia and Afghanistan, thus severing family and economic ties.
Today, official estimates by the United Nations put the population at approximately 10,590, of which about 1,200 are Kyrgyz.
The native Wakhi are of Iranian origin and, unlike the generally Sunni Kyrgyz, follow the Ismaili Shiite sect of Islam.
The Wakhjir Pass, 5,000 metres above sea level at the eastern end of the Corridor, serves as the 76-kilometre border with China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region. It was historically part of the Silk Road trade route between China and Europe.
In 1895 it became the border between the British and the Russians, although the Chinese and Afghans did not finally agree on the border until 1964.
There is no road across the pass, though in 2009 the Chinese constructed a new road to within 10 kilometres of the border for use by border guards. No other traffic is allowed, though there is some smuggling across the pass.
Remote both physically and politically, the Wakhan population feels alienated and economically marginalized within Afghanistan.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
