Socotra Archipelago
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How it came to be
The Socotra Archipelago is four islands and two rocky islets in the northwest Indian Ocean, near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden. Once part of Gondwana, it broke away from Africa in the Miocene during the same rifting that opened the Gulf of Aden. Long isolation left 37% of its 825 plant species, 90% of its reptiles and 95% of its land snails found nowhere else.
The islands were an old stopover on Indian Ocean trade routes. In Hoq Cave, sailors who called between the 1st century BC and the 6th century AD left nearly 250 texts and drawings in six languages, including South Arabian, Indian Brahmi script and Greek. The 1st-century Greek sailing guide known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea calls it the island of Dioscurides.
A Portuguese fleet seized the port in 1507 but left in 1511 after famine and sickness, and the Mahra Sultanate took the island back. Socotra became part of South Yemen in 1967, and UNESCO listed the archipelago in 2008.
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