The largest island in the Persian Gulf — salt caves, mangrove forests, whale sharks, and the traditional wooden dhow-building of the Hara people
Qeshm Island is the largest island in the Persian Gulf, 22km long and 11km wide, separated from the mainland of Hormozgan Province by the Clarence Strait — a free trade zone that is technically separate from mainland Iran's visa restrictions for many nationalities. The landscape is one of the most geologically diverse in the Middle East: the Stars Valley (Wadi al-Najoum), a landscape of wind-eroded sandstone columns and caves resembling a terrestrial moonscape; the Hara Mangrove Forest (Qeshm Mangroves UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the largest mangrove forest in Iran); the Kharbas Caves (Sassanid…
Qeshm was inhabited in the Neolithic period and was part of the Persian Gulf trading network from the 3rd millennium BCE. The island's strategic position at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz made it contested throughout history — the Portuguese controlled it in the 16th century as part of their dominance of the Persian Gulf trade routes. The British established a presence in the 19th century (the East India Company used it as a staging post). The Hara dhow-building tradition dates from before the Islamic period — the lenge boats used in the Pearl fishing trade and long-distance Indian Ocean c…