The story
Hormuz Red Soil Festival in Hormuz Island
The Hormuz Red Soil Festival celebrates Hormuz Island's uniquely colored terrain, shaped by iron-oxide-rich soil that gives the island its nickname, the Island of Rainbows, and its long tradition of using local mineral pigments in food, craft and building. The event centers on the island's geology, local cooperative products and traditional uses of the colored soil.
Hormuz Island sits in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran's southern coast, a small island whose geology sets it apart from almost anywhere else in the country: a dense concentration of exposed mineral deposits, most strikingly iron-oxide-rich red soil known locally as gelack, alongside yellow, ochre and purple mineral-stained ground, has earned it popular nicknames including the Island of Rainbows and the Island of Seven Colors.