FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Carles Millan]

As most collectors know, 'Northern Areas' had been for the last decades a Pakistani administrative division where a lot of superb specimens have been found, either from pegmatitic or alpine formation.

The point is that starting two years ago 'Northern Areas' does not exist anymore. But don't panic! The region has not collapsed because of an earthquake... On August 29th, 2009 the Pakistani cabinet approved a self‑governance reforms package for the area that included changing its nomenclature to 'Gilgit-Baltistan'. That's all.

If interested in more details just go to https://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85033&Itemid=2
or read Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgit-Baltistan
(links normalized by FMF)

So the specimens no longer come from 'Northern Areas' but from 'Gilgit-Baltistan' instead.

Surprisingly enough, however, the site Mindat.org, that has become something like the Bible of the minerals collectors, is not aware yet that that name has changed. After two years. They keep showing 'Northern Areas' everywhere and forcing its users to assign that region to the photos of specimens from 'Gilgit-Baltistan' they post, since the right name is not admitted ( https://www.mindat.org/lsearch.php?from=nsearch&loc=Gilgit-Baltistan ). This very evening I tried to correct it, but was not allowed to perform the task. So if some authorized member of the Mindat team comes to read this post, please take note to do the job whenever possible (dear Alfredo Petrov, if you are here, I think this might be for you).

[Peter]

Political changes of names/regions/administrative units always cause some problems.
Noertern areas is on most labels of specimens collected during the the last dekades Gilgit is the western district of the new Gilgit/Baltistan and Skardu is the eastern district. It is possible the region is also enclosing other districts and Baltistan is I believe a very old name and has been used also for the last dekades.... Aquamarine, Dusso Village, Shigar Valley, Baltistan, Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan), Pakistan.

In Sweden we have since some years several counties which have been there since Viking ages and politicians have now clustered some to Västra Götalands Län.
I was born and raised in the areas covered by Västra Götalands Län but I certainly am not using this political administrative area but traditional county names which are much more specific, have their own "national flowers: "Rocks", food, etc.
Peter

[Jordi Fabre]

Fixed Carles, Alfredo saw your post and he fixed it -> https://www.mindat.org/loc-14322.html

[Carles Millan]