KASHMIR or CASHMERE, native state, India, including much Himalayan country of the Punjab. Famed for its beauty, it is the chief health resort for Europeans in India, while politically it is important as guarding one of the approaches to India on the N.W. frontier. The proper name of the state is Jammu and Kash mir. Estimated area 84,471 sq.m. Pop. (1931) 3,646,243. It in cludes the provinces of Jammu (including the jagir of Punch) Kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit ; the Shin states of Yaghis tan, of which the most important are Chilas, Darel and Tangir, are nominally subordinate to it, and the two former pay a tribute of gold dust. The following are the statistics for the main divi sions of the state :— Physical Conformation, Geology and Climate.—The coun try, mountainous save for the continuation of the plains of the Punjab in the S.W., is divisible into:—(1) The outer hills and the central mountains of Jammu district. (2) The valley of Kashmir. (3) The far side of the great central range, including Ladakh, Bal tistan and Gilgit.
The hills forming the northern half-circuit of the Kashmir valley, and running beyond, include many high mountain masses and peaks, the most conspicuous of which, a little outside the con fines of Kashmir, is Nanga Parbat, 26,182 ft. above the sea, with a large glacier on its E. face. The great ridge thrown off by Nanga Parbat rises, at a distance of 12 m., to another summit 20,740 ft. in height, from which run S.W. and S.E. the ridges which are the N. water-shed boundary of Kashmir. The former range, after running 7o m. S.W. between the valleys of the Kishenganga and the Kunhar or Nain-sukh, turns S., closely pressing the river Jhe lum, after it has received the Kishenganga, with a break a few miles farther S. which admits the Kunhar. The highest summits are 16,487 and 15,544 ft. above sea. The range which runs S.E. from the junction peak above mentioned divides the valley of the Kish enganga from that of the Astor and other tributaries of the Indus. The highest point on this range, where it skirts Kashmir, is 17,202 ft. above sea. For more than 5o m. from Nanga Parbat there are no glaciers on this range; thence eastward they increase; one, near the Zoji-la pass, is only io,85o f t. above sea. The mountains at the E. end of the valley, running nearly N.-S., drain inwards
to the Jhelum, and on the other side to the Wardwan, a tributary of the Chenab. The highest part of this eastern boundary is 14,700 ft. There are no glaciers. The highest point on the Panjal range, which forms the S. and S.W. boundary, is 15,523 ft. above sea level.
The river Jhelum (q.v.) or Behat (Sanskrit Vitasta)—the Hydaspes of Greek historians and geographers—flows N.W. through the middle of the valley. After a slow and winding course it expands about 25 m. below Srinagar over a slight depression in the plain, and forms the Wular lake and marsh, about 121 m. by 5 m. in extent, surrounded by the lofty mountains which tower over the N. and N.E. of the valley. Leaving the lake on the S. W. side, near Sopur, the river flows slowly S.W. about 18 m. to the gorge at Baramulla. From this point the stream is more rapid through the narrow valley which conducts it W. 75 m. to Muzaf farabad, where it turns sharply S., joined by the Kishenganga. At Islamabad, about 4o m. above Srinagar, the river is 5.400 ft. above sea-level, and at Srinagar 5,235 ft. It has thus a fall of about 4 ft. per mile in this part of its course. For the next 24 m. to the Wular lake, and thence to Baramulla, its fall is only about 2-1- ft. in the mile. On the 8o m. of the river in the flat valley between Islamabad and Baramulla, there is much boat traffic ; but none below Baramulla till the river comes out into the plains.
On the N.E. side of this low narrow plain of the Jhelum is a broad hilly tract between which and the higher boundary range runs the Kishenganga River. Near the east end of this interior hilly tract, and connected with the higher range, is one summit, 17,839 ft., possessing many small glaciers. These heights look down on one side into the beautiful valley of the Sind River, and on another into the valley of the Lidar, which join the Jhelum. Among the hills north of Srinagar rises one conspicuous mountain mass, 16,903 ft. in height, from which on its north side descend tributaries of the Kishenganga, and on the south the Wangat River, which flows into the Sind. By these rivers and their num erous affluents the whole valley of Kashmir is watered abundantly.