Kashmir is a geographical region in far north of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid 19th century. The trem Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the great himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. Today, It denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administered terrtories of Jammu and Kashmir (which consists of jammu, The Kashmir Valley and Ladakh), Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and chinese-administered territories of Aksai chin and the Trans-Karakoram tract.

In the first half of the 1st millennium the Kashmir region became an important centre of kambojas and later of Buddhism later still in the ninth century Kashmir Shaivism arose in 1339 Shah Mir become the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir Inaugurating the salatin Kashmir of Swati dunasty. For the next five centuries Muslim monarchs ruled Kashmir Including the Mughals who ruled from 1586 until 1751 and the afghan durrani Empire, Which ruled from 1751 until 1820. That year the sikhs under Ranjit Singh annexed Kashmir. In 1846 after the sikh defeat in the First Anglo Sikh War and upon the purchase of the region from the British underthe treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh became the new ruler of Kashmir. The rule of his descendants, under the paramountcy (Or tutelage) of the british crown, lasted until 1947, when the former princely state of the British Indian Empire became a disputed territory now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan and the people's Republic of China.