Vanch-Yakh Glacier

Vanch-Yakh Glacier, long known by the name Fedchenko Glacier, is a large glacier in the Yazgulem Range of the Pamir Mountains in Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan. It extends 77 kilometers and covers more than 700 square kilometers, making it the longest glacier in the world outside the polar regions, with a maximum thickness of about 1,000 meters and an estimated volume of roughly 144 cubic kilometers. The glacier was named in 1878 after the Russian explorer Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko, though he did not discover it, and was not fully explored until a German-Soviet expedition in 1928; it advanced between 1910 and 1913 before retreating from 1928 to 1960. Tajikistan officially adopted the Vanch-Yakh name in 2023 as part of a derussification initiative.