The site lies some 120 km south of the provincial capital of Khorugh, and 52 km from the district centre of Ishkashim, in the Shohdara Range of the southern Pamir Mountains. It encompasses a part of the southern slopes of the Shohdaras, the upper Vakhan valley, and the floodplain of the Panj River 10 km downstream from the confluence of the Pamir and Vahandara Rivers. There the Panj is braided, forming water meadows, pebbly shoals and sandy islands covered with tugay thickets.