ABSTRACT
Kashmir is today divided between India and Pakistan. The valley of Kashmir, the central and most densely populated region, is in Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost Indian state. The mountainous northwestern parts of Kashmir—Gilgit, Hunza, and Baltistan—belong to Pakistan [see Pakistan: Northern Areas] . Through the 1980s, nearly 95 percent of the Kashmir Valley’s population was Muslim, with the remaining 5 percent Hindu. But in the 1990s, political and social turmoil over the future of the valley led many Hindus to emigrate to other parts of India. Historically, Kashmir was strongly influenced by largely Hindu India as well as by Muslim Persia and Central Asia, and its culture can be considered a meeting point among them.
