Geography of Oman around the Al Hajar mountains are part of the Gulf of Oman desert and semi-desert ecoregion, while the mountains themselves are a distinct habitat. The northernmost area, Musandam, extends from the tip of the Musandam Peninsula to the boundary with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at Hisn al Diba. It borders the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from the rest of the sultanate by a strip of territory belonging to the UAE. This area consists of low mountains forming the northernmost extremity of the Al Hajar al Gharbi (Western
Persian Gulf naming dispute the head of the Persian Gulf. This coincided with the early mapmaking efforts of Gerard Mercator, whose 1541 terrestrial globe attempts to give the most up-to-date information, naming the gulf "Sinus Persicus, nunc Mare de Balsera" ("Persian Gulf, now Sea of Basra"). However, on his world map of 1569, the name is changed to "Mare di Mesendin" (after the peninsula Ra's Musandam, in modern-day Oman), while his rival Abraham Ortelius, for the world atlas of 1570, opted for "Mare El Catif, olim Sinus Persicus" (after the Arabian port of Al Qatif), but labelled the entrance to the gulf the present-day