Seas and gulfs in the news

Detail

1. Key words used in this note

• Sea: a large body of salt water that is part of an ocean and partly closed in by land.
• Gulf: a large part of the sea that cuts deep into the land. It usually has a narrow mouth.
• Strait: a narrow strip of water that joins two larger water bodies.
• Chokepoint: a narrow strait that many ships must pass through. If it is blocked, world trade slows down.
• Rifting: two tectonic plates pull apart. The land between them sinks into a long valley, and the sea may later flood it.
• UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982): the world treaty that sets the rules of the sea. It covers the territorial sea, the EEZ and freedom of navigation.
• Freedom of navigation: the right of ships of every country to sail through international waters.

2. West Asia and the Horn of Africa

Persian Gulf

• Location: a shallow arm of the Indian Ocean between Iran (north-east) and the Arabian Peninsula (south-west).
• Eight countries border it: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.

• Trap: Bahrain is an island country. Qatar is a peninsula. Oman touches the Gulf only through its Musandam exclave at Hormuz.

• Outlet: the Strait of Hormuz leads to the Gulf of Oman and then to the Arabian Sea. Hormuz is one of the world's most important oil chokepoints.

• Before 2026, about 20.3 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products passed through Hormuz each day. This was roughly 25% of the world's sea-borne oil trade [8].
• Hormuz crisis, 2026: the Israeli–US bombing of Iran began on 28 February 2026. Since then, ship traffic through Hormuz has almost stopped [9].

• Hormuz carries about one-fifth of the world's oil supply and up to one-third of world trade in fertiliser raw materials (UN, April 2026) [9]. A ceasefire was extended in April 2026, but trade stayed disrupted (verify current) [9].

• Why it matters to India:

• Large oil and gas reserves lie in and around the Gulf.
• Millions of Indian workers live in the Gulf countries.
• India imports much of its crude oil and LPG from here.
• Under Op SANKALP (from June 2019), the Indian Navy escorts Indian-flagged merchant ships through Hormuz. Up to end-2022 it had deployed 36 warships and escorted about 361 lakh tonnes of cargo on 453 Indian-flagged ships [3].

Red Sea

• Location: a narrow, long sea between north-east Africa and Arabia.
• How it formed (rifting):
• The African plate and the Arabian plate pulled apart.
• The crust between them stretched, thinned and sank.
• The sea flooded the gap, giving a long, narrow sea that is still slowly getting wider.

• It is part of the same rift system as the East African Rift Valley.

• Bordering countries: Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti (African side); Yemen, Saudi Arabia (Arabian side); Jordan and Israel (at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba).

• Links:
• North: to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal (in Egypt).

• South: to the Gulf of Aden through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which lies between Yemen and Djibouti or Eritrea.

• Two northern arms on either side of the Sinai Peninsula:

Arm	Side of Sinai	Key point
Gulf of Suez	West	Leads to the Suez Canal
Gulf of Aqaba	East	Ports of Aqaba (Jordan) and Eilat (Israel)

• In the news: from late 2023, attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden made many ships avoid Suez and sail around the Cape of Good Hope. The Indian Navy stepped up maritime security operations from 14 December 2023 [2].

Gulf of Aden

• Location: an arm of the Arabian Sea between Yemen (north) and Somalia (south). It joins the Red Sea at Bab-el-Mandeb.
• Route: it lies on the main Asia–Europe shipping route through Suez.
• Indian Navy anti-piracy patrols:
• India has kept one warship on anti-piracy duty here since October 2008 [4].
• Indian ships escort merchant ships through the 490-nautical-mile Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC).
• No ship under Indian Navy escort has ever been hijacked [4].

• 120 pirates have been caught and 43 piracy attacks stopped [4].

• Piracy came back in 2023-24. Indian Navy operations from 14 December 2023 to 23 March 2024 [2]:

• saved more than 110 lives, including 45 Indian seafarers;
• escorted about 15 lakh tonnes of key goods (fertiliser, crude oil and petroleum products);
• carried out nearly 1,000 boarding operations;
• seized more than 3,000 kg of narcotics.

Horn of Africa

• Definition: the peninsula in north-east Africa that sticks out into the Arabian Sea. It is called the "Horn" because of its shape.
• Countries: Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
• Strategic role: it guards the Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb.
• Djibouti: a small country beside Bab-el-Mandeb that hosts many foreign military bases. China's first overseas military base opened here in 2017.
• Ethiopia:
• It became landlocked (it has no coast) after Eritrea became independent in 1993.
• In 2024 it signed a sea-access deal with Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. Somalia objected, and tension rose in the region (verify current).

3. Europe

Black Sea

• Location: an inland sea between Europe and Asia.
• Bordering countries (clockwise from the south): Turkey → Bulgaria → Romania → Ukraine → Russia → Georgia.
• Link to the Mediterranean (from north to south): Black Sea → Bosphorus (at Istanbul) → Sea of Marmara → Dardanelles → Aegean Sea → Mediterranean. Both straits belong to Turkey.
• Why its salinity is low:
• Big rivers pour in fresh water: the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester.
• The sea is almost closed in, so little salty Mediterranean water mixes in.

• Result: the surface water is less salty than the open ocean.

• Why its deep water has no oxygen:

• The light, fresher water stays on top. The heavy, salty water stays at the bottom.
• The two layers hardly mix, so oxygen from the air cannot reach the deep water.
• Bacteria break down dead matter there and release hydrogen sulphide (H₂S).
• Result: there is no oxygen below about 70–100 m in the centre and about 100–150 m near the edges. Below this depth the water is full of hydrogen sulphide [7].

• This makes the Black Sea the largest example of an anoxic basin (a water body with no oxygen in its deep water).

• Russia-Ukraine war: the Black Sea is a war zone and a major route for grain exports.

• The Black Sea Grain Initiative ran from July 2022 to July 2023.
• A Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul began work on 27 July 2022. It had members from Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine and the UN [6].
• It helped ships carry grain safely from three Ukrainian ports [6].
• By July 2023, about 32.8 million tonnes of grain and food had been exported under the deal [5].

Other European seas in the news

Sea	Location	Why it is in the news
Baltic Sea	Between Scandinavia, the Baltic states, Poland and Germany	Now almost ringed by NATO members after Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) joined. Russia still has coast at St Petersburg and Kaliningrad
North Sea	Between Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands	Oil and gas; offshore wind farms
Aegean Sea	Between Greece and Turkey	Island and sea-boundary disputes; migrant crossings
Adriatic Sea	Between Italy and the Balkan coast	An arm of the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea	Between Europe, Africa and West Asia	Links to the Atlantic through Gibraltar and to the Red Sea through Suez; migrant crossings

4. Asia-Pacific

South China Sea

• Location: a sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It lies south of China and runs between Vietnam (west), the Philippines (east) and Borneo (south).
• Bordering countries: China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam.
• The "nine-dash line": a map line used by China to claim most of this sea.
• Philippines v. China (July 2016):
• An arbitral tribunal set up under UNCLOS ruled against China's "nine-dash line" claim.
• China does not accept the ruling.

• An MEA-hosted lecture says the tribunal found that China's historic claims had no legal basis [13].

• India's position:

• India supports freedom of navigation in international waters.
• It says disputes should be settled peacefully by the countries involved, under international law including UNCLOS 1982 [12].
• India and ASEAN call for an early Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea [13].
• ONGC Videsh has oil blocks off Vietnam.

Spratly and Paracel Islands

Feature	Location in the South China Sea	Claims
Spratly Islands	South	Claimed wholly by China, Taiwan and Vietnam; partly by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei
Paracel Islands	North-west, off Vietnam	Held by China since 1974; claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan

• Both groups are small islets, reefs (rock or coral ridges near the water surface) and shoals (shallow banks of sand or coral).
• China has built artificial islands on some reefs.
• Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal are sites of China-Philippines clashes (verify current).

Other Asia-Pacific seas

Sea	Between	In the news for
East China Sea	China, Taiwan, Japan	Senkaku (Japanese name) or Diaoyu (Chinese name) islands, held by Japan and claimed by China
Yellow Sea	China and the Korean Peninsula	Naval activity
Sea of Japan	Japan, Korea and Russia	North Korean missile tests
Sea of Okhotsk	Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands and Hokkaido	Kuril Islands dispute between Japan and Russia
Coral Sea	North-east of Australia	Great Barrier Reef

5. Africa (Atlantic side)

Gulf of Guinea

• Location: the north-eastern part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean, off West Africa. The Equator and the Prime Meridian cross here at 0°, 0°.
• Oil: it is rich in oil, especially in the Niger Delta (Nigeria), off Ghana and in the basins near Angola.
• Piracy and kidnapping:
• The Gulf has been a hotspot for piracy and for kidnapping of crew.
• Yaoundé Code of Conduct (2013): a regional agreement by West and Central African states to fight piracy together.
• UN Security Council Resolution 2634 (2022) asks the Gulf of Guinea states to make piracy and armed robbery at sea crimes under their own laws [11].
• Piracy and armed robbery have kept falling since 2022. Criminal groups have moved to other crimes such as oil bunkering (illegally tapping and selling fuel) and oil theft [10].

6. The main chokepoints at a glance

Chokepoint	Joins	Countries on its shores
Hormuz	Persian Gulf ↔ Gulf of Oman	Iran, Oman (Musandam)
Bab-el-Mandeb	Red Sea ↔ Gulf of Aden	Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea
Suez Canal	Red Sea ↔ Mediterranean	Egypt
Bosphorus–Dardanelles	Black Sea ↔ Aegean or Mediterranean	Turkey

Prelims Hooks

• Persian Gulf has 8 bordering countries. Oman touches it only through Musandam. Jordan, Yemen and Israel do not border it.
• Red Sea formed by rifting of the African and Arabian plates. It is part of the East African Rift system.
• The Gulf of Suez lies west of Sinai and the Gulf of Aqaba lies east of it.
• Bab-el-Mandeb joins the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Hormuz joins the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
• Horn of Africa = Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti. Ethiopia is landlocked. China's first overseas base is in Djibouti (2017).
• Black Sea: rivers Danube, Dnieper and Dniester give it low salinity. Its deep water is anoxic (no oxygen) and full of H₂S. Strait order going out: Bosphorus → Marmara → Dardanelles → Aegean.
• Black Sea Grain Initiative: July 2022 to July 2023. Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul. About 32.8 million tonnes exported [5][6].
• Paracels have been held by China since 1974. The Spratlys have six claimants. Senkaku/Diaoyu is in the East China Sea, not the South China Sea.
• Gulf of Guinea contains 0°, 0°. Yaoundé Code of Conduct (2013) is for the Gulf of Guinea, not Somalia.
• The Indian Navy has had one ship in the Gulf of Aden since October 2008 and escorts ships along the 490-nautical-mile IRTC [4]. Op SANKALP (from June 2019) protects shipping in the Gulf region and Hormuz [3].

Mains Points

• Chokepoints and India's energy security (GS-III):
• Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb and Suez carry most of India's oil and gas imports and its trade with Europe.
• The 2023-24 Red Sea attacks forced ships around Africa, which raised freight costs and delayed cargo.
• The 2026 Hormuz crisis cut traffic in oil, LNG and fertiliser raw materials [9].

• India's response: naval escorts (Op SANKALP, Gulf of Aden patrols) [2][3], more varied import sources and strategic petroleum reserves.

• Physical geography explains how the seas behave (GS-I):

• The Red Sea is a young rift sea that is still widening.
• The Black Sea is a closed-in basin with river inflow, so its waters form layers and its deep water has no oxygen [7].
• The shallow Persian Gulf has high evaporation and is very salty.

• Use these as examples of how relief, rivers and climate shape salinity and oxygen in seas.

• Maritime disputes and the rules-based order (GS-II link):

• In the South China Sea, China ignores the 2016 UNCLOS award, builds artificial islands and clashes with the Philippines at Scarborough and Second Thomas Shoal.

• India backs freedom of navigation and UNCLOS 1982 [12]. Its stake includes ONGC Videsh blocks off Vietnam and its Act East policy.

• Piracy as a non-traditional threat:

• Piracy is driven by failed states (Somalia) and by oil wealth with weak governance (Niger Delta).
• The answer is regional cooperation (Yaoundé Code of Conduct 2013, UNSC Resolution 2634) [11] together with naval patrols. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has fallen since 2022 but has shifted into oil theft [10].