Shimshal is a village located in Gojal Tehsil of Hunza District, in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan. It lies at an altitude of 3,100 m above sea level and is the highest settlement in the district. It is the largest valley in Gilgit-Baltistan and it covers almost area of Hunza District.
It is in the valley of the Shimshal River, a tributary of the Hunza River. Shimshal is a border village that connects the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan with China. The total area of Shimshal is approximately 3,800 km2 and there are around two thousand inhabitants with a total of 250 households.
The village of Shimshal was founded almostly 570 years ago (in 1450) by Mamu Singh, he was the brother of “Chu Singh”, They both were Burushaski Speakers and they belong to the “Brong Family”. Chu singh was the first Wazir of Hunza, he was the Wazir of First Mir of Hunza “Girkis” (Sahib Khan). Chu Singh was the foster father of Girkis. As Chu Singh and Mamu Singh were companion and supporter of “Girkis Tham”. After Hunza and Nagar was divided, Hunza come under the Rule of Girkis while Nagar come under the rule of his brother “Moghlot”.
Mamu Singh was fond of Hunting and other Mountain Sports. One day in search of ibex, he went to Gojal. During his hunting trip, he fell in love with a beautiful girl named “Khadija”( about her it is said that either she was a Wakhi Speaker from Sirikol (now Tashkugan) or Moorkhun ). They got married and then they start to live in the area of Boiber, one day while hunting he climb up to the summit of Karun Kuh. This provided him a chance to view the entire region and to see the gazing ground of Lup Goz. then they went the area Lup Goz with flock of sheep and goats. This area is Nowadays called “Astan”. He got settled there and started to irrigate and cultivations of land to produce grain. His wife gradually became Home sick and start not talking to him.
One day he climbed on the high ground and ridge running east of “Astan”. After traveling the high ground (area of Malanguti and rech) and came to a point from where he saw the vast area of “Shimshal Valley” (Shingshal). He noticed that there were signs of existence of a water channel. He assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that this flat barren land had remained under cultivation some time in the past. Thus, Mamu Singh roposed his trust in God Almighty and decide to cultivate the abandoned land. He repaired the broken water channel and got water running through it for irrigation. After cultivations in the new settlement Mamu Singh decided to shift from Astan to Shimshal along with his wife and herds. However his wife was still not talking to him.
Sooner, Khodija gave birth to a son and they named him Sher, and then they started teaching him important things ; specially hunting
When he grew up he did go for hunting and one day while his way for a hunt he met some strangers in the Pamir. strangers and Sher both said that the Pamir is theirs’. So they ended up saying that the winner of the polo match that they will be playing will have the Pamir. The bet was if Sher drove the ball over Shimshal Pass toward Shuwert, he would win all territories from Shimshal to Raskam. after winning the area Sher started to explore it and on the other hand his family thought that he was lost somewhere in Pamir forever.
After year he returned to shimshal and he found out that his parents were dead. After a while he founded a Wakhi women and married her and she gave some sons too him and then the generations goes on and the three main lineage groupings of Shimshal: Gazikator, Bakhtikator and Baqikator were there.
Then after some time they started ruling with the hunza rulers and Mirs then countries got independences, it is to be said that shimshal was the part of china before but Pakistani government made some deals with china and gave kashgir part of Pakistan to china and took shimshal and some territory in Pakistan and draw a boader line at shimshal pass.
But it was still under Mir and hunza kingdom until in 1974 when Zulfiqar Bhutto abolished Pakistan’s last remaining princely kingdoms