Gilgit Agency was the name of most of the area of northern Kashmir which formed a de facto dependency of Pakistan from 1947 to 1970, which was then merged into Northern Areas. The Agency was administered directly from Islamabad separately from the neighbouring state of Azad Kashmir and the princely states of Hunza and Nagar. The area of the Agency comprised the traditional region of Gilgit. The Agency also 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. Both India and Pakistan recognise the regions of Gilgit and Baltistan as disputed and technically part of the divided State of Jammu & Kashmir.
The chief towns of the Agency were Gilgit and Skardu with the small town of Ghyari also holding significance for Shia Muslims as the site of a mosque built by Sayyid Ali Hamadani, a fourteenth century Persian who brought Islam to the region.
