Nice small map titled Ormuz et Bandar-Abbas, from wood  engraving with fine detail and clear impression, nice hand coloring. Overall  size approx. 18 x 16 cm, image size approx. 10 x 9.5 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.

Strait of Hormuz,

channel linking the Persian Gulf (west) with the Gulf of Oman and  the Arabian Sea (southeast). The strait is 35 to 60 mi (55 to 95 km) wide and  separates Iran (north) from the Arabian Peninsula (south). It contains the  islands of Qeshm (Qishm), Hormuz, and Hengām (Henjām) and is of great strategic  and economic importance, especially as oil tankers collecting from various ports  on the Persian Gulf must pass through the strait.

Hormuz

Persian Jazīreh-ye Hormoz, also called Ormuz, mostly barren,  hilly island of Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, between the Persian Gulf and the  Gulf of Oman, 5 miles (8 km) off the coast. The population may decline by half  in summer through migration. Hormuz village is the only permanent settlement.  Resources include red ochre for export.

After the Arab conquest, Hormuz early became the chief market of Kermān, with  palm groves, indigo, grain, and spices. By about 1200 it monopolized India's and  China's trade. The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo twice visited Hormuz.  Around 1300 the Arab ruler of Hormuz abandoned the mainland because of robbers  and founded New Hormuz on the island; it gradually superseded Qeys as the most  important Persian Gulf emporium, again becoming a market for India, and  dominated other gulf islands and occasionally mainland Oman.

In 1514 the Portuguese captured Hormuz and built a fort. For more than a century  the island remained Portuguese, but the rise of the English locally and the  Persian shah's resentment of Portuguese occupation culminated, in 1622, in  Hormuz' capture by joint Anglo-Persian forces. Hormuz, along with the nearby  larger island of Jeshun and the mainland port of Bandar ʿAbbās, was leased to  the rulers of Muscat and Oman between 1798 and 1868. Of the old and famous city  scarcely anything now remains except for part of the Portuguese fort.

Bandar-e ʿAbbās

port city on the Strait of Hormuz, the main maritime outlet for  much of southern Iran. It lies on the northern shore of Hormuz Bay opposite the  islands of Qeshm, Lārak, and Hormuz. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs and  African blacks. The summer climate is oppressively hot and humid, and many  inhabitants then move to cooler places; however, winter is pleasant.

Bandar-e ʿAbbās (“Port of ʿAbbās”) was established in 1623 by Shāh ʿAbbās I to  replace the city of Hormuz, which had been captured by the Portuguese about  1514. During the 17th century it was the main port of Persia, but it lost this  status in the 18th century to the rival “Port of Būshehr” (Bandar-e Būshehr).  From about 1793 Bandar-e ʿAbbās was under lease to the rulers of Muscat, but in  1868 Iran canceled the contract and resumed direct control.

The port's imports consist mainly of manufactured goods; its exports include  Kermān rugs, petroleum products, and agricultural produce. The town has a cotton  mill, a fish cannery, and an oil refinery (opened in 1991). A natural gas  refinery was under construction in the mid-1990s. The roadstead is shallow and  badly sheltered, and vessels must sometimes lie 4 miles (6.5 km) out. Despite  the poor quality of its port facilities, the town boomed during the Iran-Iraq  War of the 1980s when Iran's more westerly ports were threatened. A new harbour  and shipbuilding yard were under construction in the late 20th century west of  the existing port, and a major rail link was completed in 1995. Pop. (2006)  379,301.