Tajikistan

Tajikistan is the most mountainous country in Central Asia: close to ninety-three per cent of its surface is mountain and half of it lies above three thousand metres. The Pamir, known as the roof of the world, occupies the east with high desert plateaux, salt lakes and the Fedchenko glacier, the longest outside the polar regions. Those cold uplands hold the Marco Polo argali, the wild sheep with the longest horns in the world, and a significant snow leopard population. In the west, the valleys of the Zeravshan and the Vakhsh drop away towards the desert and keep gallery forests of poplar and tamarisk. The walnut and maple forests of the Hisor mountains complete a country of extreme vertical contrasts.