Band-e Amir National Park is located in the central Bamyan Province of Afghanistan. It was established on 22 May 2009 as Afghanistan's first national park to promote and protect the natural beauty of a series of intensely blue lakes created by natural dams high in the Hindu Kush. Band-e-Amir is a chain of six lakes in the southern mountainous desert area of the national park. The Balkh River originates here and flows to Balkh Province in the north.
Band-e-Amir is one of the few natural lakes in the world which are created by travertine systems. They were created when water with dissolved minerals oozed out of the faults and fractures deposited calcium carbonate precipitate. Over time, the water deposited layers of the mineral travertine that built up into walls that now contain the water.
The site of Band-e Amir has been described as Afghanistan's Grand Canyon National Park, and draws more than 100,000 local and foreign tourists annually.
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