Khor Maksar is the long flat strip of land that connects the volcanic peninsula of Crater with the mainland. The district takes its name from the salt-water lagoon that once cut the route in two; the lagoon has been mostly filled, but the area is still defined by its bridges and causeways.
This is where the British built their administrative and residential cantonment in the 1930s — pale stucco bungalows, garrison churches, the Anglican cemetery. The airport sits here, as do most of the foreign embassies and the seafront hotels that catered to ship passengers in transit. The wide road south to Crater gives a sense of how the city is laid out — the volcanic dome rising abruptly out of the flat coastal salt pans.