Kish is a 91.5-square-kilometer (35.3 sq mi) resort island in Bandar Lengeh County, Hormozgān Province off the southern coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf. Owing to its free trade zone status, the island is touted as a consumer’s paradise, with numerous malls, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and resort hotels. It has an estimated population of 26,000 residents and about 1 million visitors annually.
Kish Island is the third most-visited vacation destination in Southwest Asia, after Dubai and Sharm el-Sheikh. Tourists from many—but not all—foreign nationals who are not from countries for which Iran typically requires a visa wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are exempt from having to obtain a visa. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.
Kish Island has been mentioned in history variously as Kamtina, Arakia (Ancient Greek: Αρακία), Arakata, and Ghiss. Kish Island’s strategic geographic location served as a way-station and link for the ancient Assyrianand Elamite civilizations when their primitive sailboats navigated from Susa through the Karun River into the Persian Gulf along the southern coastline, passing Kish, Qeshm, and Hormoz islands. When these civilizations vanished, Kish Island’s advantageous position was lost and for a period it was subjected to turmoil and the tyranny of local potentates and other vendors. With the establishment of the Achaemenid dynasty, the Persian Gulf was profoundly affected. Kish was, in particular, economically and politically linked with the civilization of the Medes, Persians when they were at the height of their power.
In the shadow of the empire, the islands in the Gulf became prosperous, navigation in the Persian Gulf was expanded, and better vessels were used to carry passengers and goods. Navigational aids, including lighthouses, were set up to facilitate navigation in the Persian Gulf.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uspCgtbsjMc
In 325 BC, Alexander the Great commissioned Nearchus to set off on an expeditionary voyage to the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Nearchus’s writings on Arakata contain the first-known mention of Kish Island in antiquity. When Marco Polo visited the Imperial court in China, he commented on the Emperor’s wife’s pearls; he was told that they were from Kish.
In the 1970s, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, turned the island into a luxury resort for the international elite and a tourism hotspot, complete with a Grand Casino (renamed as the Shayan International Hotel after the Iranian Revolution). Kish Airport was designed to handle the Concorde. After the Islamic Revolution, Kish Island became a duty-free shopping center.
Kish Island is the last known location of Robert Levinson, a “former F.B.I. agent turned private investigator” who disappeared there on 9 March 2007
Tourist attractions
Though Kish is a small island, it has numerous tourist attractions.
The Greek Ship is the wreck of a 1943 cargo steamship, the Koula F, on a beach on Kish’s southwest coast.She was originally a British ship, Empire Trumpet, and was built in Scotland. In 1966, she ran aground and all attempts to salvage her failed. When Koula F‘s crew abandoned her, they set her on fire, and all that remains is her steel hull.
Another attraction is the ancient underground aqueduct, also called the ‘Underground City’, which is partly open for tourists. It was built about 1,000 years ago for transportation and water supply across the different parts of the island.
Other attractions include the beaches, which have a bluish tint, and the long shoreline that sees many tourists visit during the winter season. The water is so clear that fish can be seen swimming in the sea all year long.
Greek Ship Coral beach of the Island
Traditional Cistern
Kish recreational great Pier
Birds Garden
Kariz Underground City
Dolphin Park
Aquarium
Harireh Old City
Kish Safari
Water and Beach sports
Qanat and old Bathroom
Ocean Water Park
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island
