Gulf of Aqaba

The Gulf of Aqaba (Arabic: خَلِيج الْعَقَبَة, romanized: Khalīj al-ʿAqaba) or Gulf of Eilat (Hebrew: מפרץ אילת, romanized: Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

The name Aqaba is as old as 150 A.D. (or somewhat later, if added by a subsequent editor), as evidenced by the plotting of a Mt. Acabe ('Ακάβη όρος) in Ptolemy's Geography, which mountain is shown directly across from the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, on the western coast of the Red Sea, probably somewhere in the vicinity of modern Hurghada, Egypt, and ancient Mons Claudianus, both of which placenames could also themselves be derived cognate forms of the word Aqaba, the former by morphological drift, the latter as a translation into Latin, wherein "Claudianus" also suggests limping or stumbling, a perfect semantic overlap for the literal Arabic meaning of "Aqaba" (عقبة), as an "obstacle," "stumbling block," or "spine." Thus the Gulf of Aqaba may've in turn gotten its name from this older region, west of it, around Mt. Acabe (not necessarily a single identifiable mountain), construed as the rough spine of highland that must be crossed, to pass through the natural trade corridor there, from the Upper Nile to the Red Sea, along modern Egyptian Highway 60.

The gulf is east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. With the Gulf of Suez to the west, it extends from the northern portion of the Red Sea. It reaches a maximum depth of 1,850 metres (6,070 ft) in its central area: the Gulf of Suez is significantly wider but less than 100 m (330 ft) deep.

The gulf measures 24 km (15 mi) at its widest point and stretches some 160 km (100 mi) north from the Straits of Tiran to where Israel meets Egypt and Jordan.

Like the coastal waters of the Red Sea, the gulf is one of the world's premier sites for diving. The area is especially rich in coral and other marine biodiversity and has both accidental shipwrecks and vessels deliberately sunk in an effort to provide a habitat for marine organisms and bolster the local dive tourism industry.

At this northern end of the gulf are three important cities: Taba in Egypt, Eilat in Israel, and Aqaba in Jordan. As the only point of access to the Red Sea for the Israel and Jordan, the gulf has held and continues to hold commercial and strategic importance especially. In the case of the Israel, these few kilometers' access to the gulf were included in the original (never implemented) 1947 UN Palestine Partition Plan and became crucially important for trade during times of hostility with its neighbors (e.g. when Egypt closed access to the Suez Canal), while Jordan's 26 kilometres (16 mi) shoreline on the gulf is the only part of Jordan's borders preventing it from being completely landlocked. The gulf also is home to popular resorts for tourists seeking to enjoy the warm climate.

Further south, Haql is the largest Saudi Arabian city on the gulf. On Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab are the major centres.

The largest population center is Aqaba, with a population of 148,398 (2015), followed by Eilat with a population of 50,724 (2020).