Pamir Mountains
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world's highest mountains. Much of the Pamir Mountains lie in the Gorno-Badakhshan Province of Tajikistan. To the south, they border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan Province, Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Pakistan. To the north, they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the east, they extend to the range that includes China's Kongur Tagh, in the "Eastern Pamirs", separated by the Yarkand valley from the Kunlun Mountains. Since Victorian times, they have been known as the "Roof of the World", presumably a translation from Persian. The Pamir region is home to several different cultures, peoples and languages. In some of these languages, the Pamir Mountains are referred by different names. In Indo-European languages, they are called: پامیر غرونه in Pashto; رشته کوههای پامیر, Ришта Кӯҳҳои Помир, in Tajik; in Urdu; सुमेरु in Sanskrit. In Turkic languages, they are called: پامىر توولورۇ, Памир Тоолору, in Kyrgyz; پامىر ئېگىزلىكى, , Памир Егизлики in Uyghur. In Chinese, they are referred as "Onion Range" (), which is named after the wild onions growing in the region; In the Dungan dialect of Mandarin, it is written Памир / Цунлин in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in Xiao'erjing it is written پَامِعَر / ڞوْلٍْ. The name "Pamir" is used more commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as 帕米尔 / 帕米爾 . According to Middleton and Thomas, "pamir" is also a geological term. A pamir is a flat plateau or U-shaped valley surrounded by mountains. It forms when a glacier or ice field melts leaving a rocky plain. A pamir lasts until erosion forms soil and cuts down normal valleys. This type of terrain is found in the east and north of the Wakhan, and the east and south of Gorno-Badakhshan, as opposed to the valleys and gorges of the west.