MAKRAN or MEKRAN, a province of Baluchistan, fring ing the Arabian sea from Persia almost to Sind for about 200 M. It is subject to the khan of Kalat under British political super vision. Total area, 23,269 sq.m. ; total population (1931), 68,462. The long lateral valley of Kej is usually associated with Makran in early geographical records. The Kej-Macoran of Marco Polo is the Makran of to-day.
The long stretch of sandy foreshore is broken on the coast line by the magnificent cliffs of Malan, the headlands of Ormarah and Gwadar, and the precipitous cliffs of Jebel Zarain, near Pasni. Within them lies the usual frontier band of parallel ridges, alternating with narrow valleys. The normal conformation of the Baluchistan frontier is somewhat emphasized in Makran. Here the volcanic action, which preceded the general upheaval of recent strata and the folding of the edges of the interior high lands, is still in evidence in occasional boiling mud volcanoes on the coast-line. Evidence of extinct mud volcanoes exists through a very wide area in Baluchistan and Seistan. The coast is indented by several harbours. Ormarah, Khor Kalmat, Pasni and Gwadar are all somewhat difficult of approach by reason of a sand-bar which appears to extend along the whole coast line, and which is very possibly the last evidence of a submerged ridge; and they are all subject to a very lively surf under certain conditions of wind. Of these the port of Gwadar (which belongs to Muscat) is the most important. They all are stations of the Indo-Persian telegraph system which unites Karachi with Bushire. With the exception of the Kej valley, and that of the Bolida, which is an affluent of the Kej, there are no considerable spaces of cultivation in Makran. These two valleys seem to concentrate the whole agricultural wealth of the country. They are pictur esque, with thick groves of date palms at intervals, and are filled with crops and orchards, yet the surrounding waste of hills is chiefly a barren repetition of sun-cracked crags and ridges with parched and withered valleys intersecting them. Makran is the home of remnants of an innumerable company of mixed people gathered from the four corners of Asia and eastern Africa. The ancient Dravidians, of whom the Brahui is typical, still exist in many of the districts which are assigned to them in Herodotus.
Amongst them there is always a prominent Arab element, for the Arabs held Makran even before they conquered Sind. There are negroes on the coast, bred from imported slaves. The Meds of the Indus valley still form the greater part of the fishing population, representing the Ichthyophagi of Arrian. The old i Tajik element of Persia is not so evident in Makran as it is farther north ; and the Karak pirates whose depredations led to the invasion of India and the conquest of Sind, seem to have disappeared altogether. The fourth section includes the valleys formed by the Rakshan and Mashkel, which, sweeping downwards from the Kalat highlands and the Persian border east and west, unite to break through the intervening chain of hills northward to form the Mashkel swamps, and define the northern limits of Makran. In these valleys are narrow strips of very advanced cultivation, especially dates. The great Mashkel swamp and the Kharan desert to the east of it, mark the flat phase of southern Baluchistan topography. It is geologically part of an ancient in land lake or sea which included the present swamp regions of the Helmund. The latter is separated from the higher central depres sion of the Lora by a long transverse band of serrated hills. Here and there these jagged peaks appear as if half overwhelmed by an advancing sea of sand. They are treeless and barren, with occasional water at the edges of their foot-hills. The Koh-i Sultan, at the western extremity of the northern group of these hills, is over 6,000 ft. above sea-level, but the general level of the surrounding deserts is only about 2,000 ft., sinking to 1,500 ft. in the Mashkel Hamun and the Gaod-i-Zirreh.
The whole of this country has been surveyed and the boundary between Persian and British Baluchistan demarcated by a corn mission in 1895-1896. In 1898 a British force was sent to Makran by sea. owing to a rebellion against the authority of the khan of Kalat, and an attack made by some Makran chiefs on a British survey party. A brief campaign terminated with the capture of the Kej citadel. Another similar expedition was required in 1901 to storm the fort at Nodiz.
See Baluchistan District Gazetteer.