Passes of the world

Known forThe southern gateway, through Balochistan

The southern route through the Kirthar and Central Brahui ranges between Quetta and the Indus lowland — the Khyber's counterpart, used when the northern road was closed. It carries the rail line into Balochistan.

Settingpass · 1,790 m · Brahui range

For the examPaired with the Khyber as the two historic north-west entries. Both are now entirely inside Pakistan.

Known forThe lowest and busiest Alpine crossing

At 1,370 m, the lowest crossing of the main Alpine chain and therefore the busiest — the main road and rail freight route between Germany and Italy. The 55 km Brenner Base Tunnel beneath it, due around 2032, is being built to take freight off the valley road.

Settingpass · 1,370 m · Alps

For the examLowest of the major Alpine passes, which is why it carries the most freight. It is the Austria–Italy border and the divide between German- and Italian-speaking Tyrol.

Known forThe Klondike gold rush route

A 1,067 m pass over the coastal range from the Alaskan panhandle into the Yukon, and the route of the 1897 Klondike gold rush — where Canada required each prospector to haul a ton of supplies over the summit before being allowed in.

Settingpass · 1,067 m · Coast Mountains

Known forThe single gorge through the Taurus

A narrow gorge through the Taurus mountains, the only practical route between the Anatolian Plateau and the Mediterranean coast at Cilicia. Alexander, the Crusades and the Baghdad Railway all used it.

Settinggorge pass · 1,000 m · Taurus

Known forThe notch that opened the Appalachians

A natural notch through the Appalachian wall at 490 m, cut by an ancient stream and the only easy way west for early settlers. It is the standard example of a wind gap turned into a migration route.

Settingwind gap · 490 m · Appalachians

Known forThe Sierra Nevada crossing of the transcontinental railroad

A 2,160 m crossing of the Sierra Nevada, and the point where the first transcontinental railroad was driven through in 1868. Its snowfall is among the heaviest in the United States because Pacific storms are forced up the Sierra wall.

Settingpass · 2,160 m · Sierra Nevada

For the examOrographic lift on the Sierra's western slope gives the pass its snow and the Great Basin behind it its rain shadow — the two halves of one mechanism.

Known forThe steppe corridor between China and Central Asia

A low, flat gap between the Dzungarian Alatau and the Barlyk mountains — the one easy corridor between the Central Asian steppe and Mongolia and China. Almost every steppe migration west used it, and the Khorgos dry port and the China–Europe rail freight route run through the same gap today.

Settinggap · 460 m · steppe

For the examIt is a low gap, not a high pass — which is precisely why it mattered. Khorgos is the Belt and Road land port on it.

Known forThe oldest western Alpine crossing

The oldest known route through the western Alps, at 2,469 m, between the Valais and the Aosta valley. Its hospice has sheltered travellers since the 11th century, and Napoleon crossed here in 1800 before Marengo.

Settingpass · 2,469 m · Alps

Known forThe closed second Sikkim pass

The other Sikkim–Chumbi crossing, at 4,267 m, and the one the old Kalimpong wool trade actually used. It has stayed shut since 1962.

Settingpass · 4,267 m · Himalaya

For the examPaired with Nathu La. Jelep La leads to Kalimpong, Nathu La to Gangtok — the distinction the stem tests.

Known forThe high caravan pass at the top of the Aksai Chin dispute

At 5,540 m, the highest pass on the old Central Asian caravan road between Ladakh and Yarkand. It sits on the Line of Actual Control at the northern end of the Aksai Chin dispute, and the Depsang plains just south of it were a standoff point in 2013 and again from 2020.

Settingpass · 5,540 m · Karakoram

For the examIt gives the Karakoram range its name. Depsang and Daulat Beg Oldi lie below it; the DBO airstrip is among the highest in the world.

Known forThe highest paved border crossing, and the CPEC land route

At 4,693 m, the highest paved international border crossing in the world, carrying the Karakoram Highway between Gilgit-Baltistan and Xinjiang. It is the land spine of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, and India objects to it because the route runs through territory India claims.

Settingpass · 4,693 m · Karakoram

For the examCPEC runs Kashgar–Khunjerab–Gwadar. India's objection is that Gilgit-Baltistan is disputed territory, which is why it has stayed out of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Known forThe historic gateway into the subcontinent

The lowest and most used crossing of the Safed Koh between the Kabul valley and the Indus plain, at about 1,070 m. Almost every land invasion of India from the north-west came through it, and it remains the main road and rail route between Peshawar and Kabul.

Settingpass · 1,070 m · Safed Koh

For the examIt links Afghanistan and Pakistan — not India — since Partition. Torkham is the border post on it, and it carries most of Afghanistan's overland trade.

Known forThe road that decided Nagorno-Karabakh

The single mountain road between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, held open by Russian peacekeepers under the 2020 ceasefire. Azerbaijan blockaded it from December 2022; the enclave's Armenian population — over 100,000 people — left along it in September 2023 when Azerbaijan took the territory.

Settingmountain corridor · 1,600 m · Lesser Caucasus

For the examA textbook case of a corridor as a strategic object — control of one road decided the fate of an enclave. Compare the Siliguri Corridor and the Wakhan Corridor.

Known forThe Kailash route pass, and the Kalapani dispute

A 5,334 m pass at the India–Nepal–China trijunction, on the Kailash–Mansarovar pilgrimage route and a designated border trade point. India's 2020 road to it triggered a Nepali counter-claim to Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, which Nepal then put on a revised official map.

Settingpass · 5,334 m · Himalaya

For the examThe dispute is over where the Kali river's true source is, which decides where the boundary runs. Nepal's 2020 constitutional amendment redrew its map to include the area.

Known forThe Sinai defile that decided two wars

A defile through the Sinai hills on the road from the Suez Canal to central Sinai, and the decisive ground in both the 1956 and 1967 wars. Sinai's few passes are why an army's route across it is predictable.

Settingdefile · Sinai · desert

Known forWhere the Alps were first tunnelled

A 2,083 m pass between Savoy and Piedmont, and the site of the Fréjus rail tunnel of 1871 — the first long tunnel driven through the Alps and the proof that mountains could be tunnelled rather than climbed.

Settingpass · 2,083 m · Alps

Known forThe Sikkim trade pass into the Chumbi Valley

A 4,310 m pass on the old Lhasa trade road, connecting Sikkim to the Chumbi Valley in Tibet. Closed after 1962 and reopened for border trade in 2006, it is one of the few places where Indian and Chinese troops face each other at conversational distance.

Settingpass · 4,310 m · Himalaya

For the examIt opens into the Chumbi Valley, the wedge of Tibet between Sikkim and Bhutan that points at the Siliguri Corridor — which is why the Doklam plateau nearby mattered in 2017.

Known forThe tunnel that holds Afghanistan together

The tunnel under the Hindu Kush at about 3,400 m that is the only all-weather link between Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Built by the Soviet Union in 1964, it was the supply artery of the 1979–89 occupation and remains the country's single most important piece of infrastructure.

Settingpass · 3,400 m · Hindu Kush

For the examThe Hindu Kush divides Afghanistan north from south, and Salang is the one reliable crossing — which is why control of it has decided several Afghan campaigns.

Known forEurope's first mountain railway

A 985 m pass in the eastern Alps carrying the Semmering Railway of 1854, the first mountain railway in Europe built to standard gauge and a UNESCO World Heritage site for its engineering.

Settingpass · 985 m · Eastern Alps

Known forWhere the Sutlej crosses into India

The pass at 4,300 m where the Sutlej enters India from Tibet, in Kinnaur. It is one of the three designated India–China border-trade points, along with Nathu La and Lipulekh.

Settingpass · 4,300 m · Himalaya

For the examOne of three official border trade posts. The Sutlej rises near Lake Rakshastal in Tibet and enters India here — an antecedent river cutting through the Himalaya.

Known forNapoleon's Alpine road, and a record-holding tunnel

A 2,005 m pass between the Valais and Italy, engineered as a carriage road by Napoleon and later tunnelled — the Simplon Tunnel was the longest in the world from 1906 until 1982.

Settingpass · 2,005 m · Alps

Known forThe wagon route over the Continental Divide

A broad, gentle saddle over the Continental Divide in Wyoming at 2,257 m — so gradual that wagons could cross it. It is the reason the Oregon, California and Mormon trails all followed one route, and therefore the reason the American West was settled where it was.

Settingpass · 2,257 m · Rocky Mountains

For the examThe Continental Divide separates Atlantic from Pacific drainage in North America. South Pass is the one place a wagon could cross it without engineering.

Known forEurope's watershed, and the world's longest rail tunnel

The central Alpine crossing at 2,106 m, and the hydrographic heart of Europe: the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss and the Ticino all rise within a few kilometres of it, so water from one massif reaches the North Sea, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. The Gotthard Base Tunnel under it, opened 2016, is the longest rail tunnel in the world at 57 km.

Settingpass · 2,106 m · Alps

For the examThe Gotthard Base Tunnel is the longest and deepest rail tunnel in the world. The pass is the source region of the Rhine and the Rhône, which end in different seas.

Known forThe highest railway crossing on earth

At 5,072 m, the highest point on any railway in the world — the Qinghai–Tibet Railway crosses the Tanggula range here on permafrost, kept frozen by ammonia heat pipes and elevated piles.

Settingpass · 5,072 m · Tanggula range

For the examThe Qinghai–Tibet Railway's permafrost engineering is the standard example of building on thawing ground. The Yangtze rises just east of this pass.

Known forThe Thailand–Myanmar crossing of the Burma Railway

The historic low crossing of the Tenasserim range between Thailand and Myanmar, at about 280 m, and the route of the Burma Railway built with forced labour in 1942–43.

Settingpass · 280 m · Tenasserim range

Known forThe Tian Shan crossing into Xinjiang

A 3,752 m crossing of the Tian Shan between Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang, and the western end of the proposed China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway that was finally agreed in 2024 after nearly thirty years of talks.

Settingpass · 3,752 m · Tian Shan

For the examThe China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway would give China a route to Europe that avoids Russia entirely — which is the strategic point of it.

Known forThe main Andean crossing between Argentina and Chile

The main crossing of the Andes between Mendoza and Santiago at about 3,830 m, beneath Aconcagua. It carries the great majority of Argentina–Chile land trade and closes for days at a time in winter storms.

Settingpass · 3,830 m · Andes

For the examAconcagua, the highest peak outside Asia, stands beside it. The Christ the Redeemer of the Andes statue on the crest marks the 1902 boundary settlement.

Known forThe only Afghanistan–China crossing

The only pass between Afghanistan and China, at 4,923 m at the eastern tip of the Wakhan Corridor. It is unpaved and effectively unused — the corridor exists as a buffer drawn in 1893, not as a route.

Settingpass · 4,923 m · Pamir

For the examThe Wakhan Corridor was created to separate British India from Russian Central Asia. It gives Afghanistan its short border with China and keeps Pakistan and Tajikistan apart.

Known forThe proposed corridor that would cut Iran off from Armenia

A proposed road and rail link across southern Armenia that would join Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave and on to Türkiye. Azerbaijan and Türkiye press for it; Armenia and Iran object, because it would cut Iran's only land border with Armenia.

Settingproposed corridor · Syunik · Lesser Caucasus

For the examIran's objection is the point: the corridor would sever its land route to the Caucasus and Europe, which is why it is a live regional dispute rather than a transport project.