Swat valley is a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. It is the upper valley of the Swat River, which rises in the Hindu Kush range. Swat is surrounded by Chitral, Upper Dir and Lower Dir in the West, Gilgit-Baltistan in North And Kohistan, Buner and Shangla in the East and south East.
There are many tourist attraction places in Swat like Marghazar, Malam Jabba, Swat Museum, Miandam, behrein, Gabral, Usho,Utror, Mahodand, Kalam, Pari Lake, Bashigram Lake, Kundol Lake, Spin Khwar (White Stream) Lake and Daral Lake.
Swat has been inhabited for over two thousand years. As it is generally accepted that Tantric Buddhism first developed Swat under King Indrabhuti, it has Buddha heritage.
It is said that the Swat valley was filled with fourteen hundred imposing and beautiful stupas and monasteries, which housed as many as 6,000 gold images of the Buddhist pantheon for worship and education.
Archaeologists now know of more than 400 Buddhist sites covering an area of 160 km2 in Swat valley alone. Swat is the place of green meadows, and clear lakes, it is a place of great natural beauty and is popular with tourists.
Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the the Yusafzai State of Swat called it "the Switzerland of the east."
