History of Gilgit-Baltistan basic needs of life. History of Gilgit-Baltistan Gilgit Baltistan is an administrative territory of Pakistan, that borders the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, Azad Kashmir to the southwest, Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the northwest, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to the north, and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the south and southeast. There are more than 50,000 pieces of rock art (petroglyphs) and inscriptions all along the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit Baltistan, concentrated at ten major sites between Hunza and Shatial. The carvings were left by various invaders, traders, and pilgrims who
Balti language "Byaltae" from , which, in Tibetan, means "water gorge." The historian Ptolemy, also a general in the army of Alexander the Great, named the region "Byaltae" in his book. In fact, Baltistan is the Persian translation of "Baltiyul", "homeland of Balti." Balti people are settled on both banks of the Indus River from Kargil district in the east to Haramosh Peak in the west and from the Karakoram in the north to Deosai National Park in the south. The Balti ethnicity is primarily Tibetan in origin, with some Dardic admixture. Balti is a Tibetic language. In some rural areas, the