evidence: The people of the Wakhan Corridor live in some of the highest mountains in the world that form steep slopes cut by the Panj River. Local inhabitants speak a number of dialects of the Wakhi language, which is separate and distinct from 11 other Eastern Pamiri languages. Linking Central Asia to China’s Xin Xiang Province, the region has a rich cultural history, marked by the religious fingerprints of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. [...] During the Great Game era of the 19th century, before it was split across several countries, the Wakhan Corridor functioned as an independent buffer zone between the Russian and British empires, with self-governed statelets that spanned the River Panj. In 1893, as regional rivalries intensified, the great powers divided the territory at the river, separating families that had lived as unified communities for centuries. [...] Throughout the period of the Great Game (and before) China also fought for territory in the Wakhan Corridor, and recently won back a small stretch of land in the far northeastern corner of Tajikistan that had been under dispute since the mid-1800s (between Tsarist Russia and China). This section, rumoured to be rich in mineral wealth, was ceded to the Chinese by the Tajik government in 2011 as payment for debts the Tajik government owed to China for construction of several roads and bridges. The Tajiks living in the villages in these areas were forced to relocate to even more austere locations, lacking in water or arable land for farming or livestock.