Galyat

  

Galyat (Urdu: گلیات ‎) region, or hill tract, (also written Galliat and Galiyat)^[1] is a narrow strip or area roughly 50–80 km north-east of Islamabad, Pakistan, extending on both sides of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Punjab border, between Abbottabad and Murree.^[2] The word itself is derived from the plural of the Urdu word gali, which means an alley between two mountains on both sides of which there are valleys and it is not the highest point in the range. Many of the towns in the area have the word gali as part of their names, and are popular tourist resorts.^[3]

Brief history and ethnology

The Galyat tracts were first 'discovered' by early British colonial officials, such as James Abbott (Indian Army officer), who ventured into these areas circa 1846-47.^[4] The British found them climatically conducive to them and began to develop some of the sites in the range/tract as hill resorts, to escape the summer heat of the low-lands. Later on, after Partition/Independence of Pakistan in 1947, these were neglected for some time but eventually developed further from the 1960s onwards as popular resorts.

The main ethnic groups in the area are several tribes such as the Karlal and others.^[5]