A mountain pass is a route through a mountain range or over a ridge.

If following the lowest possible route, a pass is locally the highest point on that route. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have been important The Karakoram is a 4,693 m or 15,397 ft mountain pass between India and China in the Karakoram Range.

The Karakoram pass falls on the boundary of territory controlled by India (Jammu and Kashmir region) and China (Xinjiang Autonomous Region). It also plays a major geographic role in the dispute between Pakistan and India over control of the Siachen Glacier area immediately to the west of the pass. This situation arose from the Simla Agreement, signed in 1972 between India and Pakistan, when the treaty failed to specify the last 100 km (60 mi) or so of the cease-fire line from the end of the Line of Control to the border with China. A potential China-India-Pakistan tripoint at Karakoram Pass is referenced in a 1963 boundary treaty between China and Pakistan concerning the Trans-Karakoram Tract, but India was not party to that treaty nor any tripoint agreement.[9] The currentde facto tripoint is about 100 km west of the pass near Indira Col in the Siachen Muztagh, where the Actual Ground Position Line between Indian and Pakistani forces meets the border with China.