What makes the Persian Gulf a region
Not one of these states is a republic. Arabic is the only official language recorded in any of them, and each one names Iran among its neighbours. The states that signed the Gulf Cooperation Council charter at Abu Dhabi on 25 May 1981 are exactly the ones filed here, and the water they sit on is entered under a name not everyone on its shore uses.
Counted from the members
- Countries
- 6
- People
- 56 392 757
- Economy
- $2.4 tnGDP
- Per person
- $41 860a head
- Land area
- 2 673 141km²
- In the United Nations
- 6/6
The monarchies, and where the uniformity stops
Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar are entered as constitutional monarchies, each with a named chamber: the National Assembly of Bahrain, the National Assembly of Kuwait, the Consultative Assembly of Qatar. Oman and Saudi Arabia are entered as absolute monarchies. The United Arab Emirates carries three government terms at once, absolute, constitutional and federal, because the federation is a union of emirates whose rulers sit together on the Federal Supreme Council. Beyond the form of the state the record agrees on little else. The high ground runs from Jabal Sawda in Saudi Arabia at 3,133 metres and Jebel Shams in Oman at 3,018 metres down to Qurayn Abu al Bawl in Qatar at 103 metres. Two clocks are kept: Oman and the United Arab Emirates at UTC+04:00, the rest at UTC+03:00. The money is a dinar in Bahrain and Kuwait, a riyal in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, a rial in Oman and a dirham in the Emirates, and no shared currency is recorded.
The council, and the roster it matches
The Gulf Cooperation Council charter was signed at Abu Dhabi on 25 May 1981, after the foreign ministers of the same states met at Riyadh on 4 February that year. Its signatories are the countries filed here and nobody else. That is a rare thing on this site, where a region is usually a habit of atlases rather than a treaty. Every country also holds membership of the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
Three of the countries carry an OPEC seat in the record. Qatar's absence is dated rather than missing: the withdrawal was announced on 3 December 2018 and took effect on 1 January 2019, with a shift to gas given as the reason.
Where the shore keeps going and the region stops
The gulf's coast does not end where this roster does. Iran holds its northern shore and Iraq its head, and the catalogue files both under the Middle East. Yemen sits on the same peninsula as the rest and is filed under the Arabian Peninsula. The Strait of Hormuz, which the record for Oman shares with Iran, carried an average of 21 million barrels of oil a day in 2022, about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption.
The United Nations Statistics Division publishes no gulf grouping at all. Its M49 standard files these countries under Western Asia together with Turkey, Israel, Armenia and Georgia, and states that its groupings are a statistical convenience carrying no political meaning.
The name of the water
The catalogue enters the sea as the Persian Gulf, the form the United Nations Secretariat uses in its own documents and the one a working paper argued for at length before the UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names in 2006. Arabian Gulf is the ordinary form in the English of the governments filed here. Their own council settles the question by avoiding it: its name is the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, with no modifier at all. The catalogue records the two readings and adopts neither.
Counted from the records
What Persian Gulf runs on
- Landlocked members
- 0 of 6every member has a coastline
- In the United Nations
- 6 of 6every member holds a seat
- Time zones
- +03:00, +04:002 offsets
- Currencies
- BHD, KWD, OMR, QAR, SAR, AED
- Official languages
- ArabicArabic in 6 of them
- How they are filed
- 6 sovereign statesthe roster's own three statuses
- Driving side
- right, in every member
- Calling codes
- +965, +966, +968, +971, +973, +974
Common questions
Questions about Persian Gulf
Why are Iran and Iraq not filed in this region?
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.
Is the Persian Gulf the same body of water as the Arabian Gulf?
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.
Do the countries of the Persian Gulf share a currency?
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.
What do all the members have in common besides the coast?
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.