Bushehr

A number of alleged premodern references to Bushehr, including the first made by an Arab geographer in 1225, have been disputed as perhaps alluding to the modern city of Reishahr, a harbor 10 km to the south, where archaeological evidence points to the presence of a much older settlement.[5] Reishahr is also most likely equivalent to the town of Mesambria, a place the Greeks knew since the campaign of Nearchus (died 300 BC), and which also has been occasionally identified with Bushehr.[6]

Similar to other fishing and pearling villages in southern Iran, Bushehr was inhabited and managed by Arabs from the other side of the Persian Gulf. It was first during the early 19th-century, that direct Iranian control was established there.[5]

In 1734, the Iranian military commander Nader made Bushehr (then still a minor fishing village) the headquarters of the Persian Gulf fleet that he sought to create.[6][5] This marked the start of Bushehr's rising importance. In order to build a massive warship, Nader even brought heavy wood from Mazandaran's forests, which was 1,000 km away from Bushehr. The shell of this ship drew notice from European travelers for the next 50 years. The naval aspirations of Nader ended when he was murdered in 1747, but Bushehr continued to serve as an prominent port for at least the following 150 years. Between 1737–1753, the Dutch East India Company ran a trading facility there.[5]

Aside from Bushehr's strategic significance—being situated 300 km from Shiraz and 600 km from that of Ottoman-ruled Basra—the place offered few benefits and numerous drawbacks. The town and its surrounding area were somewhat shielded by the interior's hilly terrain and narrow gorges, but were still vulnerable to pirate intrusion. In the 19th century, European ships had to dock around four kilometers offshore and transfer freight and passengers through small boats due to the shallow path to both the shoreline and the bay. Despite the numerous windcatchers on top of the houses, the water in the wells was salty, and the summer heat and humidity were unbearable.[5]

Bushehr soon replaced Bandar Abbas as the country's most important commercial port. This was because of Iran's political and economic centre being moved to Shiraz under the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779), who had established his authority in western Iran.[5][6]