Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf alternatively known as Arabic Baḥr Fāris, Persian Khalīj-e Fārs, and Arabian Gulf, is a crescent-shaped shallow marginal sea of the Indian Ocean that lies between the Arabian Peninsula and southwestern Iran. It has an area of about 93,000 square miles (241,000 square km).It is bordered on the north, northeast, and east by Iran; on the southeast and south by part of Oman and by the United Arab Emirates; on the southwest and west by Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia; and on the northwest by Kuwait and Iraq. The term Persian Gulf (or Arabian Gulf, the name used by Arabs) is often employed to refer not only to the Persian Gulf proper but also to its outlets, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, which open into the Arabian Sea. The Persian Gulf has been a valuable waterway since the beginning of history and as the venue of the collision of great civilizations of the ancient east, it has a background of several millenniums. For centuries a considerable sea trade has been carried on by local crafts between the Persian Gulf and Africa and India; in modern times this has become completely dominated by an incessant traffic of large tankers that carry oil from the large marine terminals at Khārg Island (Iran), Kuwait, Al-Dammām (Saudi Arabia), Bahrain, Port Rāshid (United Arab Emirates), to all parts of the world. From the early 16^th century the Gulf has been familiar to the Portuguese, British, and the Dutch traders. Useful bathymetric charts and sailing instructions appeared when the British commenced collection of hydrographic, meteorological, and oceanographic data at the end of the 18th century. Subsequently Danish Fisheries Expedition conducted important marine biological studies beginning in the 1930s, and the Japanese in the 1970s. Studies of the oceanography, geology, and sedimentology of the seafloor were made in the 1950s and ’60s by American and British scientists and by oil company research scientists. Later this work was continued by German and American research expeditions and to an extent by the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research. Extensive investigations of the deeper geologic structure have been made by various oil companies, but generally this information is classified.