Ancient history The region of the Persian Gulf has been inhabited since the
Paleolithic. forming a flat
floodplain where a number of rivers converged. This region may have served as an environmental refuge for early humans during periodic hyperarid climate oscillations. The modern marine Gulf was formed when sea level rose during the early
Holocene, from around 12,000 to 6,000 years ago. The flooding of the Gulf may have stimulated the development of
Neolithic farming cultures in regions of the Middle East adjacent to the Gulf. in relation to the Persian Gulf. off the coast of
Ras Al Khaimah in 1809. The world's oldest known civilization (
Sumer) developed along the Persian Gulf and southern
Mesopotamia. For most of the early history of the settlements in the Persian Gulf, the southern shores were ruled by a series of nomadic tribes. During the end of the
fourth millennium BC, the southern part of the Persian Gulf was dominated by the
Dilmun civilization. For a long time, the most important settlement on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf was
Gerrha. In the second century
the Lakhum tribe, who lived in what is now Yemen, migrated north and founded the
Lakhmid Kingdom along the southern coast. Occasional ancient battles took place along the Persian Gulf coastlines, between the Sassanid Persian empire and the Lakhmid Kingdom, the most prominent of which was the invasion led by
Shapur II against the Lakhmids, leading to Lakhmids' defeat, and advancement into Arabia, along the southern shorelines. During the 7th century, the
Sasanian Persian empire conquered the whole of the Persian Gulf, including southern and northern shores. Between 625 BC and 226 AD, the northern side was dominated by a succession of Persian empires including the
Median,
Achaemenid,
Seleucid and
Parthian empires. Under the leadership of the Achaemenid king
Darius the Great (Darius I), Persian ships found their way to the Persian Gulf. Persians were not only stationed on islands of the Persian Gulf, but also had ships often of 100 to 200 capacity patrolling empire's various rivers including
Shatt-al-Arab,
Tigris, and the
Nile in the west, as well as Sind waterway, in India. Following the fall of Achaemenid Empire, and after the fall of the
Parthian Empire, the
Sasanian Empire ruled the northern half and at times the southern half of the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf, along with the
Silk Road, were important trade routes in the Sasanian Empire. Many of the trading ports of the Persian empires were located in or around Persian Gulf.
Siraf, an ancient Sasanian port that was located on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf, located in what is now the Iranian province of
Bushehr, is an example of such commercial port. Siraf, was also significant in that it had a flourishing commercial trade with China by the fourth century, having first established connection with the far east in 185 AD.
Colonial era Portuguese influence in the Persian Gulf lasted for 250 years. Since the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese dominance contended with the local powers and the
Ottoman Empire. Following the arrival of the English and the Dutch, the
Safavid Empire allied with the newcomers to contest Portuguese dominance of the seas in the 17th century. on Hormuz Island,
Gaspar Correia. "
Lendas da Índia", Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean in the early 16th century following
Vasco da Gama's voyages of exploration saw
Afonso de Albuquerque capture the strategically located
kingdom of Hormuz. The Portuguese fought the Ottomans in the Persian Gulf. In 1521, a Portuguese force led by commander
Antonio Correia invaded Bahrain to take control of the wealth created by its pearl industry. On 29 April 1602,
Shāh Abbās, the
Persian emperor of the
Safavid Persian Empire, expelled the Portuguese from Bahrain, and that date is commemorated as
National Persian Gulf day in
Iran. With the support of the British fleet, in 1622 'Abbās took the island of
Hormuz from the Portuguese; much of the trade was diverted to the town of
Bandar 'Abbās, which he had taken from the Portuguese in 1615 and had named after himself. The Persian Gulf was therefore opened to a flourishing commerce with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British merchants, who were granted particular privileges. The
Ottoman Empire reasserted itself into Eastern Arabia in 1871. Under military and political pressure from the governor of the Ottoman
Vilayet of Baghdad,
Midhat Pasha, the ruling
Al Thani tribe submitted peacefully to Ottoman rule. The Ottomans were forced to withdraw from the area with the start of
World War I and the need for troops in various other frontiers. In
World War II and following the
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, the
Western Allies used Iran as a conduit to transport military and industrial supply to the USSR, through a pathway known historically as the "
Persian Corridor". Britain utilized the Persian Gulf as the entry point for the supply chain in order to make use of the
Trans-Iranian Railway. The Persian Gulf therefore became a critical maritime path through which the Allies transported equipment to Soviet Union against the
Nazi invasion. The
piracy in the Persian Gulf was prevalent until the 19th century. Many of the most notable historical instances of piracy were perpetrated by the
Al Qasimi tribe. This led to the British mounting the
Persian Gulf campaign of 1819. The campaign led to the signing of the
General Maritime Treaty of 1820 between the British and the Sheikhs of what was then known as the "
Pirate Coast". From 1763 until 1971, the
British Empire maintained varying degrees of political control over some of the Persian Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates (originally called the
Trucial States) and at various times Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar through the
British Residency of the Persian Gulf.
Modern history : Tanker convoy No. 12 under
US Navy escort in October 1987 The Persian Gulf was a battlefield of the 1980–1988
Iran–Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's
oil tankers. It is the namesake of the 1991
Gulf War, the largely air- and land-based conflict that followed
Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait. The United States' role in the Persian Gulf grew in the second half of the 20th century. On 3 July 1988,
Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S. military (which had mistaken the
Airbus A300 operating the flight for an Iranian
F-14 Tomcat) while it was flying over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people on board. The United Kingdom maintains a profile in the region; in 2006 alone, over 1 million British nationals visited
Dubai. In 2018, the UK opened a permanent military base, , in the Persian Gulf, the first since it withdrew from
East of Suez in 1971 and is developing a support facility in Oman. ==Cities and population==