Gojal, also known as Upper Hunza, is the highest and most remote part of the Hunza Valley, stretching along the Karakoram Highway from just beyond Attabad Lake all the way north to the Chinese border at Khunjerab Pass. At 8,500 square kilometres, it is the largest tehsil in Gilgit-Baltistan, and the least populated — around 20,000 people live here, most of them in small villages strung along the Hunza River and its tributaries, at altitudes of 2,300 to nearly 4,900 metres. The valley shares borders with China (via the famous Khunjerab, Kilik and Mintaka passes) and with the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan (via the Irshad Pass).
The dominant people here are the Wakhi, whose language (Xikwor) is related to the Pamiri languages of Tajikistan and the Wakhan, and who are almost universally Ismaili Muslims. Gojal is famous across Pakistan for having some of the highest literacy rates and warmest hospitality in the country — a reputation the people themselves are quietly proud of. The landscape is extraordinary: the Passu Cones (the iconic serrated peaks that appear on the back of the 50-rupee note), the vast Batura and Passu glaciers, the Attabad Lake (formed by a catastrophic landslide in 2010 that dammed the Hunza river and flooded a section of the Karakoram Highway), and the high pastures of the Chapursan and Shimshal valleys.
The main villages along the highway are Gulmit (the traditional capital), Passu, Hussaini (with its famous rickety suspension bridge), Sost (the border-trade town and last stop before China), and Khunjerab at the very top. Side valleys lead off to Chapursan in the west (running up to the Afghan border) and Shimshal in the east (possibly the most spectacular trekking destination in Pakistan). Come in summer for the fruit harvest, the high passes, and long days of walking under apricot trees and glacial peaks.
