Everything about The Arabian Sea totally explained
The
Arabian Sea (
Arabic: بحر العرب;
transliterated: Bahr al-'Arab) is a region of the
Indian Ocean bounded on the east by
India, on the north by
Pakistan and
Iran, on the west by
Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between
Cape Guardafui, the north-east point of
Somalia,
Socotra,
Kanyakumari (
Cape Comorin) in
India, and the western coast of
Sri Lanka.
Description
The maximum width of the Arabian Sea is approximately, and its maximum depth is, in the Arabian Basin approximately at the same latitude as the southernmost tip of
India. The
Indus River, also known as the Sindhu river, is the largest river flowing directly into this sea; others include the
Netravathi,
Sharavathi,
Narmada,
Tapti,
Mahi, and the numerous
rivers of Kerala in India. The Arabian Sea coast of central India is known as the
Konkan Coast, and that of southern India is known as the
Malabar Coast.
The Arabian Sea has two important branches — the
Gulf of Aden in the southwest, connecting with the
Red Sea through the strait of
Bab-el-Mandeb; and the
Gulf of Oman to the northwest, connecting with the
Persian Gulf. Besides these larger ramifications, there are the gulfs of
Cambay and
Kutch on the Indian coast. Its islands are few, the chief being
Socotra, off the African, and the
Laccadives, off the Indian coast.
The countries with coastlines on the Arabian Sea are
India,
Yemen,
Oman,
Iran,
Pakistan,
Sri Lanka, the
Maldives, and
Somalia.
Cities on the coast include
Mumbai (Bombay),
Surat,
Goa,
Mangalore, and
Kochi in
India,
Karachi in
Pakistan,
Aden in
Yemen,
Salalah in
Oman,
Chabahar in Iran,
Mogadishu in
Somalia and
Colombo in
Sri Lanka.
Trade routes
It was known as the
Sindhu Sagar to Indians in the
Vedic period of their history, and an important
marine trade route in the era of the
coastal sailing vessels from possibly as early as the
3rd millennium BCE, certainly the late
2nd millennium BCE through the latter days known as the
Age of Sail. By the time of
Julius Caesar, several well-established combined land-sea trade routes depended upon
water transport through the Sea around the rough inland
terrain features to its north.
These routes usually began in the
Far East or down river from
Madhya Pradesh with transshipment via historic
Bharuch (Bharakuccha), traversed past the inhospitable coast of today's
Iran then split around
Hadhramaut into two streams north into the
Gulf of Aden and thence into the
Levant, or south into
Alexandria via
Red Sea ports such as
Axum. Each major route involved transshipping to pack animal caravan, travel through desert country and risk of bandits and extortionary tolls by local potentiates. These are the reality of the conditions which gave rise to the truth behind the tales of the
Arabian Nights stories, and those of
Sinbad the Sailor.
So important was this southern coastal route past the rough country in the southern
Arabian peninsula (
Yemen and
Oman today), that the
Egyptian
Pharaohs built several shallow canals to service the trade, one more or less along the route of today's
Suez canal, and another from the
Red Sea to the
Nile River, both shallow works that were swallowed up by huge
sand storms in antiquity. Later the
kingdom of Axum arose in
Ethiopia to rule a mercantile empire rooted in the trade with Europe via Alexandria.
Ocean trade routes have crossed the Arabian Sea since ancient times, linking the
Near East with
East Africa,
India,
Southeast Asia, and
China. Historically, sailors in a type of ship called a
dhow used the seasonal
monsoon winds to cross the water. The sea forms part of the chief shipping route between
Europe and India via the
Suez Canal, which links the
Red Sea with the
Mediterranean Sea.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Arabian Sea'.
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