The Persian Gulf

Both hold gulf coastline, and the catalogue files them under the Middle East instead. The grouping used here follows the roster of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is confined to the Arab monarchies of the southern and western shore. A reading based on the water rather than the treaty would take in Iran and Iraq as well, and that reading is in ordinary use. The catalogue records where each entry is filed and does not argue that the filing is the only correct one.

Yes, and the two names are the argument rather than the geography. Persian Gulf is the form used in United Nations Secretariat documents and in most international cartography. Arabian Gulf is the form used by the governments of the states filed here. Their own organisation takes a third route and calls itself the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, leaving the modifier off. The catalogue uses Persian Gulf throughout, records that the other form exists, and settles nothing.

No shared currency appears in the record. Bahrain and Kuwait count in dinars, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in riyals, Oman in rials and the United Arab Emirates in dirhams, and each is issued by its own state. The Gulf Cooperation Council charter of 25 May 1981 commits its signatories to coordination across economic affairs, which is not the same as a common unit of account, and none is entered against any member here.

Four things the record agrees on. Each is a monarchy. Arabic is the only official language entered against any of them. Each names Iran among its neighbours. And each belongs to the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, a combination none of them departs from. Almost everything measured rather than declared, from time offset to highest point, differs across the group.