A report on Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir (union territory) and Pir Panjal Range

Jammu and Kashmir is a region administered by India as a union territory and consisting of the southern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China since 1962.

The Pir Panjal Range (Kashmiri: Pīr Pantsāl) is a group of mountains in the Lesser Himalayan region, running from east-southeast (ESE) to west-northwest (WNW) across the Indian territories of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and then Pakistan's Azad Kashmir and Punjab.

Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range.

Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

Haji Pir Pass (altitude 2637 m) on the western Pir Panjal range on the road between Poonch and Uri in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Himalayas divide the Kashmir valley from the Tibetan plateau while the Pir Panjal range, which encloses the valley from the west and the south, separates it from the Punjab Plain of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.