The Gilgit Agency was a political unit of British India, which administered the northern half of the Princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Gilgit Agency was created in 1877 and was overseen by a political agent of the Governor-General of British India. The seat of the agent was Srinagar. In 1935, the Gilgit Agency leased the territory comprising the agency from the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, for a period of sixty years. This lease and the Gilgit Agency ceased to exist when Pakistan and India became independent countries in 1947.
Subsequent to the Partition of India in 1947 and the First Kashmir War, the name "Gilgit Agency" was adopted by Pakistan to refer to the territory which formed a de facto dependency of Pakistan from 1947 to 1970, but the name ceased to be used when the territory was merged into the Northern Areas. This Pakistani "Gilgit Agency" was administered directly from Islamabad, separately from the neighbouring state of Azad Kashmir and the princely states of Hunza and Nagar. It did not include the district of Kargil and the subdivision of Ladakh which had been a part of the British Gilgit Agency. The Pakistani Agency bordered the Sinkiang region of China to the northeast, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the south, Baltistan to east, and the North-West Frontier Province to the west.
Read more about Gilgit Agency: History
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