Neelum valley is one of the beautiful places of Azad Kashmir and it’s named after the river which has curves like snake and has blue color. It is also called as the “PARASIDE OF KASHMIR”. There is a contradiction that this valley was named after a precious stone called Neelum. Neelum Valley is located in the Kashmir Region and to the North & the North East of Muzaffarabad and running parallel to the Kaghan Valley. It is different from it by snowstorm covered mountain which are 4000 meters higher than the ocean level. It contains about 370 large and small villages. It mostly contains hills and mountains with great valleys. The valley has thick forest, streams and rivers. This valley is dipped in most amazing beauty and attracts lots of tourists from within the country and other foreign countries as well. The valley can be approached from two different points. One from Kaghan Valley and the other is Noori Top. Besides these two it has many minor passes as well.
The district of Neelum valley starts 43 km from Muzaffarabad. The area is also famous for its mineral mines from that particular locality mineral are being tranposrted to other cities of Pakistan. In addition to that there is also LOC (LINE OF CONTROL) where relatives can cross the bridge and can meet their relatives on the other side of the bridge twice a month. There is a tourist seventeen century fort built by the town’s founder, a chief of the Chak tribe named Muzaffar Khan, to ward off the Mughal armies of Emperor Akbar.
This land also has many local fruits which are of great taste including Apples, Apricots, Walnuts and Plums which are famous. A large number of tourists visit it in summers. The whole valley gives fascinating and beautiful scenery. There is also a mountain “SARWALI” (6326 meters) which is one of the highest mountains in Azad Kashmir. The valley include lush green forests and high altitude lakes makes the surrounding heavenly and it is like a dream come true for the people who visit it. The snow capped mountains and the fast flowing Neelum river all make us believe that we are in some part of Switzerland. Many of the tourists who are interested in mountain tourism also come and enjoy here. The river is also famous for its fishing and it has Trout fish in abundance.
Some of its famous places like Shounter Pass, Chita Khata, Ratti Gali, Baboon, Noori Top, Sharda, Kel, Surgon and many more are mentioned by famous tourists like Mustansar Hussain Tararr etc. Tararr even wrote a travelogue on after visiting there. The three rivers present in this area are Jhelum, Neelum and Poonch.
The people of districts Kotli,Mirpur & Bhimber, are simple, truthful and deeply attached to their land. The culture of this area resembles to that of the adjoining area of Punjab. People here mostly follow the culture which quite resemble to that of Punjab.
While the district of Muzaffarabad has its own distinctive culture. The people are intelligent, hard working and are skillful. As it is the capital of AJK so it quite established and people here are educated and sophisticated when you compare with the other areas of the neelum valley.
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