Maritime Indian Ocean Routes: the port of Gwadar/Gwātar

Within the main Indian Ocean routes - both maritime and land ones - Gwadar, divided during the second half of the nineteenth century by the British Boundary Commission between the Persian east bay of Gwātar and the western bay of Gwadar, represented one of the main routes of communication between the Middle East and the Indian Sub-continent, together with a strategic role within slave, ivory, dates, and spice trade from East Africa and from the Arabian Peninsula, directed to Central Asia and vice versa. Both Gwātar and Gwadar, on the coastal Makrān region, have been scientifically defined terra incognita.