Cape Jask

Cape Jask is a low, sandy headland on Iran's Makran coast, near the eastern entrance to the Gulf of Oman. The cape can be recognized by a square rock a few miles north and rises from a dry coastal plain toward broken inland hills. Offshore waters support fish but offer few obvious natural shelters.

Balochi and Persian names attach to the port, and historical geographers used the cape to mark where the Persian coast and Makran met. The Gulf of Oman, formerly known as the Makran Sea, joined the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf. Coastal inhabitants fished, cultivated dates and grain where water allowed, and carried goods across arid routes.

English traders made Jask a commercial base in the early seventeenth century. An East India Company ship arrived from India in 1616, and a trading post followed in 1619. English factories used the port to reach markets in Iran until nearby Bandar Abbas took over much of that trade. Portuguese attempts to block access led to fighting around the cape in the 1620s.

Unlike the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the approach to Jask was open to monsoon winds, pearl banks and fishing grounds, but exposed to heat, drought and sudden storms. Its value came from its position on maritime routes between India, Arabia and the Persian interior rather than from a broad hinterland.