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 lakes formed from mineral-rich water that seeped out of faults and cracks in the rocky landscape. Over time, the water deposited layers of the mineral travertine that built up into walls that now contain the water. The Balkh River originates here and flows to Balkh Province in the north.