Bubiyan Island

Island at the head of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, off the north coast of Kuwait and west of the Shatt al-Arab.

Separated from Kuwait by a narrow waterway, Bubiyan is Kuwait's largest island. Along with al-Warba Island, it lies at the mouth of Iraq's Gulf port, Umm Qasr. Both islands have been the focus of Iraq's territorial claims. In 1990, before invading Kuwait and announcing an annexation of Kuwaiti territory, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein demanded that Kuwait cede its sovereignty over both islands. Following Iraq's defeat in spring of 1991 by a United Nations coalition of forces, and the restoration of Kuwait's ruling Al Sabah family, this boundary dispute cooled but has not been settled.

Bibliography

Adams, Michael, ed. The Middle East: A Handbook. New York: Facts on File, 1988.

— EMILE A. NAKHLEH

Map of Kuwait showing Bubiyan Island

Bubiyan Island (Arabic: جزيرة بوبيان‎) is the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal island chain with an area of 863 km².

It is separated from the mainland in the northeast by Khawr Abd Allah and from the mainland in the southwest by Khawr as Sabiyah. The latter channel trends around the northern end of Bubiyan Island, separating it from Warbah Island. 5.4 km northwest of Ras al Barshah, the southernmost point, Bubiyan is linked to the mainland by a concrete girder bridge over the Khawr as Sabiyah channel, 2.38 km^[1] long, built in 1983, which is for military use only^{[citation needed]}. The island is situated in the north-western corner of the Persian Gulf. During the Persian Gulf War of 1991 the bridge was destroyed, but has been rebuilt.

In November 1994, Iraq formally accepted the UN-demarcated border with Kuwait which had been spelled out in Security Council Resolutions 687 (1991), 773 (1993), and 883 (1993) which formally ended an earlier claim to Bubiyan Island^[2].

References

1. ^ Bubiyan Bridge in the Structurae database
2. ^ "CIA World Fact Book - Iraq". everything2.com. 2007-01-14. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1378818. 

External links

• Nautical descriptionPDF (607 KiB)

Coordinates: 29°47′N 48°11′E / 29.783°N 48.183°E / 29.783; 48.183

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