Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb (, Tonb-e Bozorg and Tonb-e Kuchak, , Tunb el-Kubra and Tunb el-Sughra) are two small islands in the eastern Persian Gulf, close to the Strait of Hormuz. They lie at and respectively, some from each other and south of the Iranian island of Qeshm. The islands are administered by Iran as part of its Hormozgan Province Greater Tunb has a surface of . It is known for its red soil. There are conflicting descriptions about its population: While some sources state there are between a few dozen and a few hundred inhabitants, others describe the island as having no native civilian population. There is reported to be an Iranian garrison and naval station, an aircraft runway, a fish storage facility and a red-soil mine. Lesser Tunb has a surface of and is uninhabited with the exception of a small airfield, harbour, and entrenched Iranian military unit. Toponymy The toponymy of Tonb is in all likelihood of Persian origin. In the local Persian dialect(s) of southern Persia, the noun Tomb andTonb, with its diminutive Tonbu or Tombu, as it applied to Lesser Tonb (Nāmiuh or Nābiuh Tonb), means “hill” or “low elevation” (cfr. Medieval Latin tumba and Ancient Greek tymbos, with the same meaning, roots for "tomb"). The terms have the same meaning in the larger Dari Persian language system; this explains in part the traces of tonb and tonbu in the toponyms found in the Bushehr and Lengeh regions, some 300 miles (480 km) apart. There are other toponyms such as Tonb-e Seh in Tangestān and Tonbānu on Qeshm island. Etymologically, the word TNB is also a proper Arabic word, which means to anchor, according to the Medieval Arab linguist Ibn Fares. Dispute Reference to Great Tonb as an Iranian island is found in Ibn Balkhi's 12th-century Farsnameh and Hamdallah Mustawfi Kazvini's 14th-century Nuzhat al-Qulub. The Tonbs were dominions of the Kings of Hormuz from 1330 or so until Hormuz's capitulation to the Portuguese in 1507. The Tonbs remained a part of the Hormuzi-Portuguese administration until 1622, when the Portuguese were expelled from the Persian littoral by the Persian central government. During this period, the human geography, commerce, and territorial administration of the Tonbs, along with Abu Musa and Sirri islands, became intimately connected with the Province of Fars, notably the Persian ports of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Kang, and the nearby Qeshm and Hengam