Sea · Iran, Iraq, Kuwait
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf is a warm, shallow arm of the sea between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Eight countries have a coast on it, and many of them call it the Arabian Gulf.
Picture credit: m.saberi (CC BY-SA 3.0) · mohsen barazandeh ah… (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Hamed Saber (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Persian Gulf?
Part of: Indian Ocean.
Countries on its coasts: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman.
The story behind it
The Persian Gulf is only about 50 m deep on average, and even its deepest spot is just about 90 m. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz, it is about 56 km wide and opens towards the Indian Ocean. In the north-west, the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet and flow into the gulf together as the Shatt al-Arab. Over 700 kinds of fish swim among rocky and coral reefs, and dugongs, gentle “sea cows”, graze on seagrass. Dolphins and finless porpoises are the most common sea mammals here. Long before oil was found, people on the coast lived from fishing, building wooden boats called dhows and diving for pearls, because pearl oysters were plentiful. Today big cities such as Dubai, Kuwait City and Abu Dhabi stand on the shore, and tankers carry oil from here all over the world.
Find it on the globe
Persian Gulf is there as a name written across its water — tap the water and its card opens. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
Questions children ask
How big is the Persian Gulf?
The Persian Gulf covers about 251 000 km², although some sources give a little less. It is about 989 km long but only about 90 m deep at its deepest point.
Which rivers flow into the Persian Gulf?
Why were pearls important in the Persian Gulf?
The gulf has many pearl oysters, and before oil was discovered, pearl diving was one of the main ways people earned a living. People also fished and built wooden dhows.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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