Shinkari Valley

Shinkari is an area in Kohistan of the Indus Valley in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.The Karakoram Highway is the main route passing through the town of Shinkari. This road leads to the capital of the Federally Administered Northern Areas at Gilgit and to China via the path of the ancient Silk Highway.

The economy of the town relies on agriculture. Tea gardens and tobacco, wheat, maize and rice are cultivated in the fertile land of Pakhal.

Hindko and the Pushto are the local languages spoken in Shinkari.The climate is mostly pleasant and maximum temperatures during summer are 30 C and minimum temperatures in winter are -4C. There is snowfall in winter.

“ The Kohistan of the Indus Valley, which is also called Shinkari, "the country of the Shins "by the people themselves is inhabited by what are apparently the remains of a number of tribes of cognate race , whose progenitors once inhabited the valleys skirting the Punjab , and possibly extended to the north and north west have been hitherto confounded under the name of Dards -a name which practically , has no real signification