23 Facts About Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf has many fishing grounds, extensive reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has been damaged by industrialization and oil spills.

Persian Gulf is in the Persian Gulf Basin, which is of Cenozoic origin and related to the subduction of the Arabian Plate under the Zagros Mountains.

Countries with a coastline on the Persian Gulf are: Iran; Oman's Musandam exclave; the United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia; Qatar, on a peninsula off the Saudi coast; Bahrain, an island nation; Kuwait; and Iraq in the northwest.

Persian Gulf is home to many islands such as Bahrain, an Arab state.

Geographically, the biggest island in the Persian Gulf is Qeshm island, belonging to Iran and located in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Persian Gulf islands are often historically significant, having been used in the past by colonial powers such as the Portuguese and the British in their trade or as acquisitions for their empires.

Persian Gulf is connected to the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Hormuz.

The water from the Persian Gulf has a higher salinity, and therefore exits from the bottom of the Strait, while ocean water with less salinity flows in through the top.

The shallow basin that now underlies the Persian Gulf was an extensive region of river valley and wetlands during the transition between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the start of the Holocene, which, according to University of Birmingham archaeologist Jeffrey Rose, served as an environmental refuge for early humans during periodic hyperarid climate oscillations, laying the foundations for the legend of Dilmun.

Oldest evidence in the world for seagoing vessels has been found at H3 in Kuwait, dating to the mid-sixth millennium BC, when the Persian Gulf was part of an extensive trade network that involved the Ubaid settlements in Mesopotamia and communities along the entire Persian Gulf coast.

Between 625 BC and 226 AD, the northern side was dominated by a succession of Persian Gulf empires including the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires.

Persian naval forces laid the foundation for a strong Persian maritime presence in Persian Gulf, that started with Darius I and existed until the arrival of the British East India Company, and the Royal Navy by mid-19th century AD.

Persians were not only stationed on islands of the Persian Gulf, but had ships often of 100 to 200 capacity patrolling empire's various rivers including Shatt-al-Arab, Tigris, and the Nile in the west, as well as Sind waterway, in India.

Siraf, an ancient Sassanid port that was located on the northern shore of the Persian gulf, located in what is the Iranian province of Bushehr, is an example of such commercial port.

Portuguese influence in the Persian Gulf lasted for 250 years; however, since the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese dominance contended with the local powers and the Ottoman Empire.

The Persian Gulf was therefore opened to a flourishing commerce with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish and the British merchants, who were granted particular privileges.

The Persian Gulf therefore became a critical maritime path through which the Allies transported equipment to Soviet Union against the Nazi invasion.

From 1763 until 1971, the British Empire maintained varying degrees of political control over some of the Persian Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates and at various times Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar through the British Residency of the Persian Gulf.

Wildlife of the Persian Gulf is diverse, and entirely unique because of the Persian Gulf's geographic distribution and its isolation from the international waters only breached by the narrow Strait of Hormuz.

The Persian Gulf has hosted some of the most magnificent marine fauna and flora, some of which are near extirpation or at serious environmental risk.

From corals, to dugongs, Persian Gulf is a diverse cradle for many species who depend on each other for survival.

Persian Gulf is home to over 700 species of fish, most of which are native.

Iraq's egress to the Persian gulf is narrow and easily blockaded consisting of the marshy river delta of the Shatt al-Arab, which carries the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, where the east bank is held by Iran.