Makran
Makran () is a partly-desert coastal strip in the south of Balochistan, in Iran and Pakistan. It is along the coast of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. The Persian phrase Mahi khoran, fish-eaters (Mahi = fish + khor = eat) is believed to be the origin of the modern word Makran.
The narrow coastal plain rises very rapidly into several mountain ranges. The coastline is 1,000 km, 750 km of this is in Pakistan. The climate is very dry with very little rainfall.
History
According to the book Documents on the Persian Gulf's name " and ENCYCLOPEDIA Iranika Makran also Mekran and Mokran historically in persian and Arabic text was a vast area from Hormuz strait to the Sind River some mentioned as far as gujarat region.also the body of water in that region was called Macran Sea.The name Makran has found a popular etymology in mahi-kvoran "fish eaters," but more probable is a connection with the name Magan,or Maka of the Old Persian.
Until the early Islamic period, eastern Makran at least must have been within the sphere of Indian religion and culture.
On his way homewards from the Far East in 1290, Marco Polo (II, pp. 334-35) sailed along the Makran coast, calling it KisMacoran (i.e. Tiz Makran), considering it as the last province of India and attributing to it a ruler of its own. In the early 14th century, Ebn Battuta (II, pp. 341-2) records that, after the death of the Il-Khanid sultan (i.e. after 736/1335), a certain Malek Dinar took power in Makran. It was during these centuries that Makran was colonized by Baluch tribesmen moving southeastwards from Persia, so that it is today mostly Baluch-speaking. The boundary between Persian Makran and that part coming within the British Indian province of Baluchistan (the easternmost part forming the Native State of Las Bela) and after 1947 within Pakistan, was demarcated by an Anglo-Persian Boundary Commission in 1870-72.
Notes
Landforms of Pakistan
Regions of Pakistan
Landforms of Iran