Gilgit-Baltistan is a territory of Pakistan, which was formerly known as the Northern Areas. It is the northern most political entity within the Pakistani-controlled part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.It borders Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to the west, Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor to the north, China to the northeast, the Pakistani-administered state of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) to the south, and the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast. The territory became a single administrative unit in 1970 under the name “Northern Areas” and was formed by the amalgamation of the Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan District of the Ladakh Wazarat, and the states of Hunza and Nagar.
With its administrative center at the town of Gilgit, Gilgit-Baltistan covers an area of 72,971 km(28,174 m) and has an estimated population approaching 1,000,000. Pakistan considers the territory separate from Kashmir, whereas India considers the territory as a part of the larger disputed territory of Kashmir that has been in dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
There are more than 20,000 pieces of rock art and petroglyphs 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 passed along the trade route, as well as by locals. The earliest date back to between 5000 and 1000 BCE, showing single animals, triangular men and hunting scenes in which the animals are larger than the hunters. These carvings were pecked into the rock with stone tools and are covered with a thick patina that proves their age. The archaeologist Karl Jettmar has pieced together the history of the area from various inscriptions and recorded his findings in Rock Carvings and Inscriptions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan and the later released Between Gandhara and the Silk Roads – Rock Carvings along the Karakoram Highway.