- Persian:
- جزیره خارک (Jazīreh-ye Khārk)
- Arabic:
- جزيرة خارج (Jazīrat Khārg)
Kharg Island
Why did the U.S. strike Kharg Island in March 2026?
Why is Kharg Island important?
Where is Kharg Island located?
What is the significance of Kharg Island in terms of oil exports?
What are some historical features found on Kharg Island?
What role did the Dutch East India Company play on Kharg Island?
How was Kharg Island affected during the Iran-Iraq War?
Kharg Island, small coral island in Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, 34 miles (55 km) northwest of the port of Bushehr. The island serves as the terminal for nearly all of Iran’s oil exports and has a loading capacity of about 7 million barrels per day.
History
Kharg Island is one of relatively few Persian Gulf islands with natural freshwater resources, making it suitable for settlement by small populations. The earliest archaeological indications of human activity on the island are from the Achaemenid period. Two rock-cut tombs exhibit features similar to funerary forms in Palmyra, although a small number of scholars have suggested connections to funerary forms in Nabataea or Parthia. Structural remnants of a Christian monastic complex, likely belonging to the Church of the East sometime after the 7th century, are also among the island’s ruins. Evidence of the island as an active mercantile post throughout the Islamic era extends from the Abbasid period through the Mongol period. It then came under the control of the ruler of Hormuz in the 14th century.
In the 18th century the Dutch East India Company established a factory (trading station) on the island after reaching an agreement with Naṣr al-Saʿdī, the Arab ruler of the nearby port of Bandar-e Rīg. Following Naṣr’s death the Dutch had a tenuous relationship with his son and successor, Muhannā. After the Dutch aided an assault on Bandar-e Rīg by a rival ruler in 1765, Muhannā expelled the trading company.
The island was virtually uninhabited for long periods thereafter, but, with Iran’s 20th-century mineral prosperity, it became a crude-oil terminal and loading facility in the 1960s. In the 1970s supertankers docked there rather than at Abadan for bulk landing. By the mid-2020s the terminal had the capacity to load 10 supertankers simultaneously. Sulfate fertilizers, liquid gas, and other petroleum products are shipped from the island. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), Iraqi forces targeted Kharg Island several times, temporarily damaging its oil terminal. While it was out of commission, Iran shifted its shipping to smaller facilities at Lavan Island and Sirri Island. In March 2026, during the 2026 Iran conflict, U.S. air strikes targeted military sites on the island, including storage facilities for submarine (naval) mines and missiles being used to block the Strait of Hormuz, but it left the oil terminal unscathed.