India shares its shortest international land boundary with:

India's land border with Afghanistan is only about 106 km long, the shortest of India's international land boundaries.

Where the border lies:

• The India-Afghanistan border lies in the extreme north-west of the Union Territory of Ladakh, in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan.
• It touches the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, a narrow strip of land between Tajikistan in the north and Pakistan in the south, extending to China in the east.

Present position:

• The area adjoining Afghanistan is part of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh that has been under Pakistan's occupation since 1947 (Gilgit-Baltistan).
• So, in practice, India does not have physical access to this border.
• However, India's official map shows the region as part of India, so India counts Afghanistan as one of its land neighbours.

The Wakhan Corridor:

• It was created in the late 19th century, under agreements between Britain and Russia during the "Great Game", as a buffer zone to keep the British Indian Empire and the Russian Empire apart.
• It is about 350 km long and only about 13 to 65 km wide.

India-Afghanistan relations:

• India has had close historical and cultural ties with Afghanistan.
• India built the Afghan Parliament building in Kabul, the Salma Dam (Afghan-India Friendship Dam) in Herat, and the Zaranj-Delaram highway.
• India has supplied food grains and other humanitarian aid, including through Iran's Chabahar port.
• After the Taliban took over in August 2021, India closed its embassy but later reopened a technical mission in Kabul to manage humanitarian aid.

India's borders, from shortest to longest:

Afghanistan (about 106 km) is the shortest; Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal are much longer; Bangladesh is the longest.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Bhutan (about 699 km), Myanmar (about 1,643 km) and Nepal (about 1,751 km) all have much longer borders with India.