JAMMU AND KASHMIR

state of India, located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the vicinity of the Karakoram and western Himalayan mountain ranges. The state is part of the larger region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since the partition of India in 1947. Formerly one of the largest princely states of India, it is bounded to the northeast by the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang and to the east by the Tibet Autonomous Region (both parts of China), to the south by the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, and to the northwest and west by the Pakistani-administered portion of the territory. The administrative capitals are Srinagar in summer and Jammu in winter. Area, 38,830 square miles (100,569 square km). Pop. (1994 est.), 8,435,000. Additional reading General geographic accounts are contained in A.N. Raina, Geography of Jammu and Kashmir, 3rd rev. ed. (1981); and Moonis Raza, Aijazuddin Ahmad, and Ali Mohammad, The Valley of Kashmir: A Geographical Interpretation, vol. 1, The Land (1978). S. Maqbul Ahmad and Raja Bano, Historical Geography of Kashmir (1984), is based on Arabic and Persian sources of the medieval period. P.N.K. Bamzai, Kashmir and Central Asia (1980), studies the geographic, political, and cultural relations between these areas from prehistoric times. G.M. Rabbani, Ancient Kashmir (1981), provides a glimpse of prevailing political, social, and economic conditions in a historical perspective. Mohammad Ishaq Khan, History of Srinagar, 18461947 (1978), traces the great historical events and political upheavals during that period. Balraj Puri, Jammu and Kashmir: Triumph and Tragedy of Indian Federalisation (1981), discusses more recent events. Rais Akhtar History The history of Jammu and Kashmir state is given in the article Kashmir. William Kirk Rais Akhtar The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica