An Island within an Island: The Establishment of an Oil Company Town in the “Desert” Island of Abadan, Iran (1908–1930s)

With the commencement of oil extraction from the Naftun oilfields in 1908, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company designated Abadan Island in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, Iran, as the pivotal locus for refining and exporting Iranian oil. This decision transformed the island into a company town while embedding it within the broader geopolitical and economic framework of British imperialism. From its inception, the oil company town of Abadan was conceived as a strategic hub in the British Empire rather than an isolated settlement. Its architecture and infrastructure were designed to standardise spaces, ensuring Abadan’s integration into imperial circuits, in preparation for imperial expansion, powered by oil’s strategic mobility. Two central elements of the project were the reconfiguration of property rights and the cultivation of a spatial imagination that reinforced colonial hierarchies. The result was a racially segregated “island within an island,” where expatriates enjoyed privileged environments while local and non-European labourers were confined to inferior living and working conditions. Drawing on archival materials, including maps, correspondence, and contractual records from British governmental and corporate sources, this paper examines the political, legal, and spatial strategies that shaped Abadan Island and its oil company town between 1908 and the 1930s. It argues that Abadan’s early urban form was a calculated imperial construct, rather than a conventional company town, and thus intended to materially situate a local oil site onto the British imperial map.