Bandar Abbas

The settlement that is now Bandar Abbas dates back to between 522 and 486 BCE. The original settlement, then named Gamerun, stood on the mainland near Hormuz Island, home to the settlement of Hormuz, which served as the main port for the area.

When the Persians regained control over Bandar Abbas from the Portuguese, it would not last, with the leadership of the city changing several times between the Persian, Omani, and British Empires. Though the city changed rulers, its culture remained Persian. Comparatively small in population against the larger trading cities, Bandar Abbas had a cosmopolitan nature and is said to have had English, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Armenian, Georgian, Muscovite, Turkish, Arab, Indian, and Jewish merchants.

Alphonse Albuquerque, 1584
Unknown Author
Engraving
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Portuguese naval commander Afonso de Albuquerque first set foot on Hormuz during an expedition in 1507, but was forced to abandon the island. Another anniversary was celebrated In 1515, he returned to the island and succeeded in establishing control over the kingdom of Hormuz, building a powerful fortress on the island, and maintaining a strong naval presence in the region for 107 years.

During their occupation of the city, the Portuguese brought thousands of Africans to Bandar Abbas as slaves, and while most of these slaves were sold and taken out of the city, some settled in Bandar Abbas, resulting in a distinct population of Afro-Iranians that remains to this day. Slavery in Persia was non-discriminatory, there would have been Georgians and Circassians enslaved in Persia, and Bandar Abbas, at the same time that the Portuguese and Omani’s were bringing Africans to Bandar Abbas as slaves. While the British would put pressure on the region to end its slave trade, slavery in Iran would not be abolished until 1928, and not in Oman until 1970.

Bandar Abbas faced several decades of misfortune before recovering under Omani rule. The Persian government did not maintain the city, rather the Safavid government committed large scale embezzlements and oppression of merchants. This resulted in Bandar Abbas and its surroundings undergoing depopulation, and it gradually came under Arab control before the British abandoned their trading post. Arab control was formalized in 1793 when the Sultan of Oman leased the port from the Persians, which brought the city into the Omani trading empire. In 1798, the Omanis signed a treaty that gave the British East India Company access to the port, and trade once again flourished. Inclusion in the Omani Empire connected Bandar Abbas to trade with the coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, but Bandar Abbas still was not as prosperous as it had been just after liberation from Portuguese rule.

Bandar Abbas continuously changing hands between multiple governments contributed to ineffective administration that was detrimental to long-term growth, until the 20th century. At that time Bandar Abbas went through a period of stagnation before it became modern Iran’s primary port of entry for goods.
The city was largely ignored until 1964 when its deep-water port was
developed, increasing its importance massively, and soon the city was thriving. Expansion of the port city accelerated during the Iran-Iraq war, and the size of the city only increased with the installation of improved facilities during the 1990s, and the establishment of a connecting railway.

Antique Map of Gamron (Bandar Abbas), circa 1700J.C Haffner
Engraving

The port-city of Bandar Abbas, known at the time as Gamron, sprawls from the coast to the mountains, as ships of all sizes arrive and depart with their wares.