Gedrosia

Gedrosia (/dʒɪˈdroʊʒə/; Greek: Γεδρωσία) was the Hellenized name of an Achaemenid satrapy in coastal Makran (present-day Balochistan). In the accounts about Alexander the Great and his successors, the area referred to as Gedrosia ran from the Indus River to the north-eastern edge of the Strait of Hormuz. It was directly to the south of the provinces of Arachosia and Drangiana, to the east of the province of Carmania, and due west of the Indus which formed a natural boundary between it and western India. Pliny the Elder, while explaining the extent of India, included the four satrapies of Arachosia, Gedrosia, Aria and Parapanisidae as its western borders as opposed to other contemporaneous accounts that instead considered Indus as the westernmost boundary. India within the Ganges is bounded on the west by the Paropanisadai, Arakhosia, and Gedrosia along their eastern sides; on the north by Mount Imaos, which is situated near the Sogdiaioi and Sakai; on the east by the river Ganges; and on the south and again on the west by a part of the Indian Ocean. Ptolemy, Geography 7:1 According to Arrian, Nearchus mentions a race called Ichthyophagi ("fish-eaters") as inhabiting the barren shores of the Gwadar and Pasni districts in Makrān. During the homeward march of Alexander the Great, his admiral, Nearchus, led a fleet in the Arabian Sea along the Makrān coast and recorded that the area was dry and mountainous, inhabited by the Ichthyophagoi or Fish-Eaters. They are also identified on the 4th century Peutinger Map, as a people of the Baluchistan coast. The existence of such tribes was confirmed by Sir Richard F Burton. Another group of people named as Oreitans were mentioned inhabiting modern Lasbela District in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.