Badakhshan Province is located in the mountainous north east of Afghanistan with an area of 15,786 square miles and a population of 940,250. It includes the Wakhan Corridor, which touches China. Badakhshan mines virtually all the lapis lazuli in Afghanistan. The population is Tajik and the province is famous for its Marco Polo sheep, ibexes and snow leopards. Artifacts from the Middle Paleolithic (50,000 years ago) were discovered in 1966 and prehistoric petroglyphs are still visible.