Persian Gulf

"The Persian Gulf is now under attack once again. Can't believe that would've happened. Now these Iranian bastards are trying to destroy Saudi Arabia, and bring the end of the powerful rule of the House of Saud here in most of the Arabian Peninsula once and for all."

--Su Ji-Hoon, Another Persian Gulf War

The Persian Gulf (Persian: خلیج فارس‎, translit. Xalij-e Fârs, lit. 'Gulf of Fars') is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean (Gulf of Oman) through the Strait of Hormuz and lies between Iran to the northeast and the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline.

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 gulf has many fishing grounds, extensive reefs (mostly rocky, but also coral), and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has been damaged by industrialization and oil spills.

The body of water is historically and internationally known as the "Persian Gulf." Some Arab governments refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf" (Arabic: الخليج العربي‎) or "The Gulf," but neither term is recognized internationally. The name "Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf)" is used by the International Hydrographic Organization.

The Persian Gulf is geologically very young, having been formed around 15,000 years ago.