Persian Gulf
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an arm of the Indian Ocean which penetrates between Arabia and Persia to the extent of 650 miles in a general N. W. direction. Its breadth varies from 55 miles at the mouth to 250 miles, and the area is estimated at 77,450 square miles, not including the islands, which are scattered over the W. half, or lie close inshore along the E. side. The chief of these islands are Ormuz, at the mouth; Kishm, 810 square miles in extent; and the Bahrein Islands. The Great Pearl Bank stretches along the W. side from Ras Hassan to nearly half way up the gulf. The coast is mostly formed of calcareous rocks. With the exception of the Shat-el-Arab, the Persian Gulf receives only insignificant streams. Its E. side presents abundance of good anchorage, either in the numerous bays or in the lee of is lands. The greater portion of its S. shores now belongs to the Imam of Muscat, while the whole of the N. shore belongs to Persia. The order of the periodic currents in this gulf is precisely the reverse of that of the Red Sea currents, as they ascend, from May to October, and descend from October to May. The greatest depth does not exceed 50 fathoms. The submarine telegraph cables belonging to the government of India, and forming part of the system of the Indo- European Telegraph, pass through the whole length of the Persian Gulf. The pearl fisheries employed before the World War 70,000 men and 6,000 barks.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 described a gulf whose economy was pearls — 70,000 men and 6,000 barks before the World War — and whose strategic value to outsiders lay in the Indo-European telegraph cables laid along its floor. Within twenty years both had been eclipsed: the pearl trade collapsed in the 1930s under Japanese cultured pearls and the Depression, while oil came in at Bahrain in 1932 and in Kuwait and eastern Saudi Arabia by 1938, making these shores among the most valuable on earth. The politics named here have all dissolved — Persia was renamed Iran in 1935, and the coasts Collier's assigned to the Imam of Muscat became independent Kuwait (1961), Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (all 1971). The gulf has since been fought over repeatedly, in the Iran–Iraq tanker war of the 1980s and the wars of 1990–91 and 2003, and the Strait of Hormuz at its mouth, past Collier's "Ormuz," is now the world's most important oil chokepoint. Arab states today generally call it the Arabian Gulf, a naming dispute that did not exist in 1921.
Written for this edition, 2026.