| Pirallahi | |
| Native Name: | Pirallahı adası / Artyom |
| Settlement Type: | Island of the Baku Archipelago |
| Coordinates: | 40.4667°N 50.3167°W |
| Area Total Km2: | 14.6 |
| Elevation M: | 8 |
| Population Total: | 20,578 |
| Pushpin Map: | Caspian Sea |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Timezone1: | AZT |
| Utc Offset1: | +4 |
| Timezone Dst: | AZT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | +5 |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Type1: | Region |
| Subdivision Name1: | Absheron Region |
| Subdivision Type2: | Province |
| Subdivision Name2: | Baku |
| Subdivision Type3: | District |
| Subdivision Name3: | Pirallahi |
Pirallahi Island or Pirallakhi Island (Azeri: Pirallahı adası) is an island in the Caspian Sea. The island is part of Azerbaijan and lies off the north-eastern shore of the Apsheron Peninsula, to the east-north-east of Baku.
The island is long and has a maximum width of . Administratively, Pirallahi Island belongs to the Pirallahi district of Baku.The total square of the island is 14.6 km2. In 1968 the population of the village of Artyom-Ostrov reached 14.4 thousand people. The population of the island is 17,281 people (according to the 2020 census), the density is ~ 3000 people / km2.
The island forms part of the Absheron archipelago Important Bird Area (IBA), designated as such by BirdLife International because it supports significant populations of wintering whooper swans, common pochards, tufted ducks, great crested grebes and common coots, as well as breeding Caspian gulls.[1]
Pirallahi literally means "the shrine of Allah", from the word pir - a shrine / holy place. In ancient times, there was a place of worship and pilgrimage on the island, but there is no exact data on which religion it belongs to. According to one version, it was a shrine of the Zoroastrians, and according to others, Muslims.
During Russian Imperial times the island's name was Svyatoy (from Russian: Святой - "The holy one"). It is said that undersea booty from a 1660 sea battle between Persians and Cossack leader Stepan Razin lies off the northern tip of the island.[2]
Pirallahi Island is said to be among the first places where oil was extracted in Azerbaijan, and in the 1820s it was divided into two separate areas, one residential, and another where oil was refined into paraffin. In 1934, oil explorers dropped metal drills off piers from the island, which at the time was considered an advancement in offshore oil exploration.[3]
While Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, the island was renamed as Artyom Island in the 1936 (ru|Остров Артёма) after the pioneer revolutionary Comrade Artyom (Fyodor Sergeyev). Pirallahi Island still has a settlement called Artyom.
The old Artyom village was evacuated due to rising water levels of the Caspian Sea and residents moved to a series of apartment towers built by German prisoners in 1948 .On 5 October 1999, the current name was returned.
In the early 1950s, by the construction of a dam, the island was connected to the mainland and thus transformed from an island into a peninsula. In 2016, a road bridge was built on the site of the dam, under which ships can pass