page_title: Karakoram Highway
section_title: Rivers and lakes
hierarchical_section_title: Karakoram Highway / Tourism / Rivers and lakes
caption_attribution_description: English: The Karakoram Highway stretches some 700 kilometers from Islamabad, through the Karakoram mountains and into China. It is an incredible feat of engineering, cutting its way through deep valleys and plains into the mountains of northern Pakistan, providing communication between the districts Diamer, Ghizar, Gilgit and Balistan, with the major cities of Mansehra, Abbattabad, Haripur, Islamadad and Rawalpindi. This is the turn of Karakoram Highway near the junction of three mountain ranges Karakoram, Himalayas and Hindukush.
context_page_description: The Karakoram Highway is a 1,300 km national highway which extends from Hasan Abdal in the Punjab province of Pakistan to the Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan, where it crosses into China and becomes China National Highway 314. The highway connects the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa plus Gilgit-Baltistan with China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The highway is a popular tourist attraction and is one of the highest paved roads in the world, passing through the Karakoram mountain range, at 36°51′00″N 75°25′40″E at maximum elevation of 4,714 m near Khunjerab pass. Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. The highway is also a part of the Asian Highway AH4.
context_section_description: Several rivers and lakes are made accessible by the highway. These include:
  Indus River
  Hunza River
  Attabad Lake
  Gilgit River
  Khunjerab River
  Karakul Lake in Xinjiang (China)
caption: Karakoram Highway near Juglot, where three mightiest mountain ranges meet
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix F30", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix F30     Ver1.02", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:14 10:59:13", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1362", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9140", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/480", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:14 10:59:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:14 10:59:13", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "179/20", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "192/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "8", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2016", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1214", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3932", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3932", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}