Hunza State

Hunza, also called Kanjut, was a Burusho kingdom in the high valleys of the Karakoram, in today's Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. Its rulers were first known as Thum and later took the title Mir of Hunza, claiming a lineage that ran back to Alexander the Great, and the people of the state were known as Kanjutis. For centuries the valley was an independent monarchy that paid tribute to Qing China from around 1760 or 1761, sending sixteen tola of gold dust each year and receiving silk, tea and porcelain in return, while its horsemen raided the nomads of the Kunlun ranges. The state capital was Baltit, a fortified palace above the river. After the Anglo-Burusho War it accepted a subsidiary alliance with British India in 1891, though its Mirs also acknowledged the suzerainty of the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir without becoming part of it. Hunza stayed unaligned for three months after partition and then acceded to Pakistan in November 1947, and it was the last of the princely states to be abolished, in 1974, when its ten thousand people became a district of the northern areas.