Gilgit

Gilgit was Buddhist for centuries, a staging post on the branch of the Silk Road that crossed from the Tarim basin over the passes towards Kashmir and Swat. The rock-cut Buddha at Kargah, about ten kilometres west, and the Gilgit manuscripts — birch-bark Buddhist texts discovered near the town in 1931 and among the oldest manuscripts in the world — belong to that period. Islam spread through the valleys from around the 14th century, and local dynasties, the Trakhan rulers of Gilgit among them, governed small mountain states that fought and allied with Hunza, Nagar, Chitral and Baltistan.

In the 19th century the valley was drawn into the rivalry between the British and Russian empires. The Dogra rulers of Jammu and Kashmir gained Gilgit under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, and the British, guarding against Russian advance, established the Gilgit Agency in 1877, later re-established under the British Resident in Jammu and Kashmir, with the locally raised Gilgit Scouts as its force. It was from here that the campaign against Hunza and Nagar was launched in 1891, and from here that the frontier was watched.

In late 1947, after the Maharaja of Kashmir acceded to India, the Gilgit Scouts and local leaders overthrew his governor on 1 November and the territory came under Pakistani administration, an anniversary still marked in the city. Gilgit became the headquarters of the Northern Areas, renamed Gilgit-Baltistan in 2009, though the region's constitutional status remains unresolved and India claims it as part of the former princely state. The Karakoram Highway, completed with China in the late 1970s, turned the town into the region's transport hub, and a university, hospitals and government offices followed.

Gilgit is the meeting point of the region's languages. Shina is the main tongue of the city and the surrounding valleys, Burushaski is heard from Hunza and Nagar, Balti from Skardu, Wakhi and Khowar from the western and northern valleys, and Urdu serves as the common language of trade, school and government. That mixture makes the bazaar one of the most linguistically varied market streets in Asia.

Religion is equally mixed. Shia, Sunni and Ismaili communities all live in the city, each with its own mosques, imambargahs and jamatkhanas, and Gilgit-Baltistan is the only Shia-plurality part of Pakistan. Relations have at times been strained, and the calendar of Muharram is observed with large processions. Ismaili institutions, especially the Aga Khan network, run many schools and clinics in the surrounding valleys, and literacy rates in the region are high by national standards.

Polo is the defining sport, played in the fast freestyle form with few rules, a band of drums and shawms at the side of the ground and crowds along the walls; the summer tournament against Chitral on the Shandur Pass is the fixture everyone follows. Folk music uses the drum, the surnai shawm and the six-stringed rubab, and crafts include woollen patti cloth, embroidered woollen caps worn by men across the region, and gemstone cutting. Manners are formal: greetings before business, tea before conversation, and modesty in dress and behaviour.

Gilgit is the most populous city in Gilgit-Baltistan, and its district counted some 325,000 people at the 2023 census. It is the destination for families from every valley who come for hospitals, schooling, government offices and the university. The population swells during term time with students, and in summer with traders, tourists and expedition crews passing through.

The economy is built on government service, the army, transport and trade. Goods for the whole region are unloaded here from the Karakoram Highway and redistributed by jeep and minibus; dried fruit, gemstones and handicrafts move in the other direction. Farming continues on irrigated terraces around the city, with apricots, apples, cherries and vegetables, and tourism supports hotels, drivers and guides from May to October.

Days begin early, with transport leaving for the valleys soon after dawn and the bazaar busy by mid-morning; the heat of a summer afternoon empties the streets until evening. Winter brings quiet, power cuts and cold, though the city stays open when the high valleys close. Current concerns include electricity and flour prices, landslide and flood risk, water supply, the lack of full constitutional status for the region, and the pace at which tourism is changing land use in the valleys nearby.

Gilgit eats a mixture of mountain and national cooking. From the valleys come chapshuro, a griddle-cooked bread filled with minced meat and onion; mamtu, steamed dumplings served with yogurt or sauce; buckwheat and barley breads eaten with apricot oil or butter; and thick flour-based soups for the cold months. From the rest of Pakistan come the tikka shops, karahi pans, dal, pilau and tandoori naan that fill the bazaar, cooked for drivers and traders rather than visitors.

Dried fruit is the region's signature product and the bazaar is the place to buy it: apricots dried whole or in halves, mulberries, walnuts, almonds, apricot kernels and apricot oil, along with honey from the valleys. Fresh fruit follows the short season — cherries and apricots in early summer, then apples, pears and grapes — and much of it is sold from handcarts in the market streets.

Tea marks the rhythm of the day. Green tea, often with cardamom, is the usual offering; sweet milk tea is drunk in the shops; and Balti families make the salted butter tea of Tibetan tradition. Alcohol is not sold. Bakeries turn out tandoori bread through the day, and sweets such as halwa and barfi appear at weddings and festivals, when whole neighbourhoods cook together.