Southern Bahrain Coast

Southern Bahrain Coast encompasses the kingdom's quieter, less urbanised shoreline, facing the deeper water of the Gulf of Bahrain toward the Saudi Arabian coast of the Hasa Province. Here the landscape opens into broader sandy beaches and the infrastructure density drops, giving way to a more traditional coastal character. The tidal regime mirrors the north — semi-diurnal, 1.0 to 1.5 metres — with tidal flats exposed on the ebb across wide areas of the shallow Gulf seabed. The Hawar Islands, technically part of this coastal zone, host important populations of dugong, with the shallow seagrass meadows providing their primary feeding ground. The islands were the subject of a long-running territorial dispute between Bahrain and Qatar resolved by the International Court of Justice in 2001. Traditional fishing from southern villages uses traps and gillnets, with hamour prized above all. The mangrove patches that fringe some of the southern inlets support juvenile fish nurseries and provide coastal protection from the shallow but occasionally storm-driven Gulf swell.