Kish Island

Kish is a resort island in the Persian Gulf and It is part of the Hotmozgan Province of Iran. It has an estimated population of 20,000 residents and about 1 million people visit the island annually. The area of the island is 91.5 km². Kish Island is the purported to be the third most visited vacation destination city in the Middle East. Kish Island has been mentioned in history variously as Kamtina, Arakia, Arakata, and Ghiss. In 325 BC, Alexander the Great commissioned Nearchus to set off an expedition voyage into the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf, Nearchus's writings on Arakata is 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 the last Shah of Iran turned the island into a luxury resort for the international elite complete with a Grand Casino.