In antiquity it was known to the Greeks of the first century AD as the fabled Island of Dioscorida and described by Marco Polo in the late thirteenth centrury as the Island of Socotra - the market of the dragon's blood. Island of Bliis, Isle of Tranquillity, Island of Mists, Galapagos of the Indian Ocean and the Galapagos of the Arabian Peninsula are just some of the names which have been applied to the island over the centuries.

Strategically positioned near the main gateway to the Red Sea, Socotra has been famous since ancient times, and is mentioned in the oldest stories of the world. Gilgamesh of the Babylonian epic passed through the Waters of Death world (the Bab al-Mandab straits) at the southern end of the Red Sea and came here to learn the secrets of immortality from a relative, known as Uta Napishtim.

Egyptian knew Socotra as the Island of the Genie - the spirit of the sacred tree, whose gum they used for mummification, temple offerings and medicine. To the Greeks in the first century AD, it was famed for the phoenix, 'the Arabian bird' and locals believe that the oozing cinnabar-like resin of the dragon's blood tree is the result of an ancient myth of the combat between an elephant and a dragon, and the forces of life and death. The island's population, which currently stands at 50.000, consists mostly of shepards and fishermen who speak the unique Socotri dialect. The main population centres are towns along the north coast, such as Hadibu (Hadiboh) - the principal administrative centre; Mouri, with its airport; Ghubbah; Qadheb and the western port of Qalansiyah. The coastal population represent quite mix of backgrounds, consisting of Arabs (Hadrami and Gulf Arabs) who settled here on the islands over 3.000 years ago, as well as Greeks, Africans, Somalis, Mahri tribes, descendants of slaves, sailors, traders and shipwrecked seamen, and other races who have been migrating to the island since the twelfth century. There is alson a Socotri-speaking bedouin population in the interior, who live in the hills, tending their cattle and goats. The variety is hardly surprising considering the island's long and chequered history.

Life on the island is controlled by the two monsoon seasons. The south-west monsoons rage from April to October and bring extremely strong, hot and dry winds in from Africa. There is little precipitation and extreme desiccation during these months. The winter monsoon is less severe and blows in the opposite direction from the north-east, and the Indican subcontinent, bringing a little rain, and lasts from November until March.

Rainfall is always higher in the mountains than on the more arid coastal plains, but is sporadic, and there are some years when no rain falls at all. Nocturnal dew seems to be far more important to the water supply than monsoonal rain, especially in the high altitude mountain belt where the mountainous cloud yone provides ground water and running water for the entire island.

The coastal plains tend to be sub-desertic and are colonised by deciduous shrubs principally Croton socotranus, euphorbias, cucumber trees and Ziziphus spina-christi, but the foothills of the mountains contain a shrubby landscape with incense trees and more bizarre bottle-trunked trees. Socotra, it has to be said, is sparsely vegetated, but pockets of verdant vegetation survive the desiccating summer winds in sheltered valleys or in the high mountaains. Due to the island's isolation, an the fact that human activity has been kept to a minimum, about 37 percent of the flora is unique to the archipelago. Not surprisingly, the vegetation on the island is of great interest to botanists. Over 825 species of plant have now been recorded, and around 307 exist nowhere else in the world.

This makes it on of the richest island floras in the world, and Socotra has even been described as the Galapagos of the Arabian Peninsula. The fauna on the island is equally remarkable, 90 percent of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world.