Persian Gulf at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The waters are overall very shallow, with a maximum depth of and an average depth of . Countries with a coastline on the Persian Gulf are (clockwise, from the north): Iran; Oman's Musandam exclave; the United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia Qatar, on a peninsula off the Saudi coast; Bahrain, on an island; Kuwait; and Iraq in the northwest. Various small islands also lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states of the region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Persian Gulf's southern limit
Persian Gulf naming dispute Persian Gulf naming dispute The Persian Gulf naming dispute is concerned with the name of the body of water known historically and internationally as the Persian Gulf (), after the land of Persia (the traditional name of Iran). This name has become contested by some Arab countries since the 1960s in connection with the emergence of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, resulting in the invention of the toponym "Arabian Gulf" () (used in some Arab countries), "the Gulf" and other alternatives such as the "Gulf of Basra", as it was known during the Ottoman rule of the region. On almost all