'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎111r] (226/862)

COASTS OF THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
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goods being transhipped and re-exported to Qatif and Oqair on the
mainland. The principal exports are oil, pearls, wood fuel, rope,
hides and skins, dried fish, and dates, and the chief imports are
cotton goods, foodstuffs, hardware, cutlery, and cement.
Qatif to Ras al Ardh (fig. 38)
The coast from Qatif to Ras al Ardh, nearly 250 miles north-west
at the entrance to Kuwait bay, is low and sandy or stony with salt-
marshes and occasional isolated hills. It is barren and uninhabited
except for a few small villages and several beduin tribes. Unexplored
reefs extend more than 20 miles off the coast in most places and allow
only small boats to approach. An irregular network of motor-roads
and tracks covers the desert for more than 50 miles inland.
Qatif harbour is sheltered from the north-east by Ras Tannura, a
sandy point about 15 miles long. There is sheltered anchorage inside
the point, a small pier and customs-house, and an aircraft landing-
ground. The California Arabian Standard Oil Company is developing
an oil port at Ras Tannura, connected to the Dhahran oilfield by
motor-road and pipe-line; crude oil is exported at the rate of about
1,500 barrels a day (1941) for refining at Bahrein.
There is anchorage, exposed to north and north-west winds, off
Jabal Dhalaifain, a square black hill 23 miles north-north-west of
Qatif. Jubail, 16 miles north-west of Jabal Dhalaifain, has a small
creek with a boat anchorage and an emergency landing-ground;
there are motor-roads south-east to join the Qatif-Oqair coastal road
at Jabal Dhahran, and another north-west almost to the neutral zone,
with branches inland and several tracks to the coast. From Jubail
the coast curves north-north-west for 15 miles to the end of the
sandy Batina peninsula, off which is Jazirat Abu Ali. Between this
island and Ras al Bidya, 15 miles north-west, is the entrance to an
irregular shallow bay about 30 miles wide, ending in swamps in the
south and north-west and containing two small islands with villages;
there is an emergency landing-ground on Jinna, the larger island.
Ras al Bidya is a low sandy point projecting south from the east
end of a peninsula about 12 miles long and 7 miles wide on which are
brown rocky hillocks. It has a track inland. North-west of this the
coast continues low with small bays to Ras at Tanajib, a long curved
point; there is a dry-weather road running south from Manifa, the
southernmost bay. A track runs west from the bay between Ras at
Tanajib and Ras as Saffaniya, another curved point 16 miles north
west. Another track runs south-west from the bay between Ras as