IOR/R/15/1/384-388

The volumes contain correspondence, reports, maps, and memoranda relating to British interests in the Arabistan [Khūzestān] and Luristan [Lorestān] provinces of south west Persia following their political and commercial penetration of the region in the late nineteenth-century. The documents cover a broad period of considerable change in the region, from relative isolation under near-total British domination (administered through a handful of political offices and powerful local tribes and governors) in the early part of the twentieth-century, to an imposition of central Persian authority in the 1920s and 1930s.

The volumes cover various subjects, including:

• Extensive discussion over the political administration of the provinces;
• Plans for the building of a new consulate building at Ahwaz;
• Relations between the Persian government and local tribes;
• Smuggling into and out of the region, especially currency into Iraq;
• Plans for the development of Khor Musa into a port for the use of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC);
• Unrest among Arab tribes following the imposition of central Persian authority;
• Other miscellaneous topics, including information on tribes, taxes, and border issues.