Baloch, group of tribes speaking the Balochi language and estimated at about five million inhabitants in the province of Balochistān in Pakistan and also neighbouring areas of Iran and Afghanistan. In Pakistan the Baloch people are divided into two groups, the Sulaimani and the Makrani, separated from each other by a compact block of Brahui tribes.
The original Baloch homeland probably lay on the Iranian plateau. The Baloch were mentioned in Arabic chronicles of the 10th century ce. The old tribal organization is best preserved among those inhabiting the Sulaimān Mountains. Each tribe (tuman) consists of several clans and acknowledges one chief, even though in some tuman there are clans in habitual opposition to the chief.
The Baloch are traditionally nomads, but settled agricultural existence is becoming more common; every chief has a fixed residence. The villages are collections of mud or stone huts; on the hills, enclosures of rough stone walls are covered with matting to serve as temporary habitations. The Baloch raise camels, cattle, sheep, and goats and engage in carpet making and embroidery. Their agricultural methods are primitive. They profess Sunni Islam.
Some 70 percent of the total Baloch population live in Pakistan. About 20 percent inhabit the coterminous region of southeastern Iran. This geographic region is the least-developed in Iran, partially owing to its harsh physical conditions. Precipitation, which is scarce and falls mostly in violent rainstorms, causes floods and heavy erosion, while heat is oppressive for eight months of the year. The mountain chains of Iranian Balochistān, including the Bāga-e Band and Bāmpusht Mountains, run east-west, parallel to the Gulf of Oman, making ingress and egress difficult. In the centre of the region there are abundant groundwater and streams, such as the Māshkīd and the Kunāri, that sometimes open out into valleys.
In ancient times, Iranian Balochistān provided a land route to the Indus River valley and the Babylonian civilizations. The armies of Alexander the Great marched through Balochistān in 326 bce on their way to the Hindu Kush and, on their return march in 325, experienced great hardships in the region’s barren wastes.
The Seljuq invasion of Kermān in the 11th century ce stimulated the eastward migration of the Baloch. The Seljuq ruler Qāwurd (Kavurt) sent an expedition against the Kufichis (Qufs), Baloch mountaineers whose banditry had long threatened the region’s southern and eastern parts. After suppressing the Baloch, the Seljuqs put watchtowers, cisterns, and caravansaries along the desert route to encourage trade with India. The Baloch remained rebellious under Safavid rule (1501–1736). Western Balochistān was conquered by Iran in the 19th century, and its boundary was fixed in 1872. The Iranian government began to assist settlement and economic development in the 1970s by building dams and thermoelectric-power plants, though these efforts slackened after the Iranian Islamic Revolution (1979).
Palm-tree oases in central Iranian Balochistān contain orchards of oranges, pomegranates, mulberries, and bananas. Grain, tobacco, rice, cotton, sugarcane, and indigo plants are the principal crops. A road was opened from Zāhedān to the port of Chāh Bahār. Zāhedān also is connected by rail with Pakistan, Zābol, and Tehrān; and it is a junction for roads east-west.