The Karakoram Highway links Pakistan with China. Also called the China–Pakistan Friendship Highway, it crosses the Khunjerab Pass between Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region and China’s Xinjiang region.
The route is about 1,300 kilometres long, running broadly between Hasan Abdal in Pakistan and Kashgar in China. It follows and modernizes parts of an ancient trade corridor associated with the Silk Road, passing through dramatic mountain terrain, including valleys near the Hunza River and the high Karakoram ranges.
Construction began in 1966, the highway was completed in 1979, and it opened to the public in 1986. Its strategic importance goes beyond tourism: it supports transport and political cooperation between Pakistan and China. A major landslide in 2010 created Attabad Lake and temporarily severed the road; a 24-kilometre system of bridges and tunnels reopened the link in 2015. Afghanistan, India, and Tajikistan are nearby, but none is the highway’s connected partner country.