Beauty of Chitral, Pakistan:

Chitral, translated as field in the native language Khowar, is the capital of the Chitral District, situated on the western bank of the Kunar River, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It also served as the capital of the former princely state of Chitral.The town is at the foot of Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, which is 25,289 ft high. It has a population of 20,000. The altitude of the valley is 3,700 ft.The Chitral Town, is situated on the west bank of the Chitral at the foot of Tirich Mir which at 7,708 m is the highest peak of the Hindu Kush. Up until 1969, it served as the capital of the princely state of Chitral.The easiest access to Chitral, other than by air, is in the southwest along the Kunar Valley from Jalalabad. This route is open all year and provides direct access to Kabul. However the Pakistan–Afghanistan border prevents this from being used as an internal route to the south. The other routes are over high mountain passes. To the south, the 3,200 metres Lowari Pass leads 365 kilometres to Peshawar. In the north, the easiest route during summer runs over the 3,798 metres Broghol Pass to Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. To the east, there is a 405 kilometres route to Gilgit over the 3,719 metres Shandur Pass. In the west, the 4,300 metres Dorah Pass provides an additional route to Afghanistan. The territory is cut off by snow from the rest of the country for up to six months a year, a problem soon to be relieved by the completion of the Lowari Tunnel.Nothing definitive is recorded about the area’s first settlers. In the 3rd century AD, Kanishka, the Buddhist ruler of the Kushan empire, occupied Chitral. In the 4th century AD, the Chinese overran the valley. Raees rule over Chitral began in 1320 and came to an end in the 15th century. From 1571 onwards Chitral Town was the capital of the princely state of Chitral under the rule of the Katur Dynasty.In contrast to more southerly valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chitral has a dry Mediterranean climate with almost no rainfall during summers. Precipitation occurs mainly from spring thunderstorms brought about by western frontal systems. In the winter the night time temperature occasionally drops to −10 C. Winter snowfall in the town can be quite heavy with an accumulation of up to two feet being quite common, at higher elevations snowfall can reach as high as 20 metres .The general population is mainly of the Kho people, who speak the Khowar language, which is also spoken in parts of Yasin, Gilgit and Swat.The Norwegian linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although Khowar is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here.

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