Chilas (Chilās)
Chilas (undefined) is a small town located in the Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan on the river Indus. It is part of the Silk Road connected by the Karakoram Highway and N-90 National Highway, which link it to Islamabad and Peshawar in the southwest, via Hazara and Malakand Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the north, Chilas is connected to the Chinese cities of Tashkurgan and Kashgar in Xinjiang, via Gilgit, Aliabad, Sust, and the Khunjerab Pass.
Chilas comes under Gilgit-Baltistan.It is the Headquarter of District Diamir.1(Pamir Times August 2 2012.)The weather is hot and dry in the summer and dry and cold in the winter. It can be reached through Karakoram highway and also from the Kaghan valley passing over the Babusar Pass. Chilas is situated on the left bank of the mighty river Indus. Foreigners may need permission to travel in Chilas.
Recently, Karakoram International University has opened its sub campus in Chilas to educate the students
Even after Kashmiri-British rule was imposed a century ago, the Indus Valley west of Chilas was a hornet’s nest of tiny republics; there was one in almost every side valley, each loosely guided by a jirga (council of tribal elders) but effectively leaderless, all at war with one another and feuding internally. Though administratively lumped with Gilgit, Chilas and its neighbours are temperamentally more like Indus Kohistan, probably owing to a similarly hostile environment and the same Sunni Muslim orthodoxy. Their ancestors were forcibly converted centuries ago by Pashtun crusaders from their original Pagan religions, whereas hardly anyone north of Chilas in the Gilgit-Baltistan province is Sunni. Although their lives a tiny Shia community which converted to Shia Islam some decades ago in the 80's.
The large Chilas Fort was first garrisoned to protect British supply lines over the Babusar Pass, and beefed up after local tribes nearly overran it in 1893. Now a police post, it has put a lid on Chilas, though not on the Darel and Tangir Valleys to the west.
Chilasis are Shina speakers, with some Pashtun settlers speaking Pashto. Urdu and some English are also spoken.
