Our beautiful planet:
Iran & the Persian Gulf
You’re looking east in this shot, so north is roughly left and south is to the right. Iran, ancient Persia, is that darker mountainous mass (and then some) center left, with the bright reflection right up against the coast. The satellite is probably over Iraq or Saudi Arabia at this point. In the upper part of the photo, the Strait of Hormuz is located in the middle of the narrow portion of the gulf where the long tapered peninsula with a mountain range for a spine pokes out from the south. There’s a great map here that shows exactly where the shipping lanes lie and how shallow the seas are.
The above satellite image comes courtesy of an interesting Web site called Persian Gulf Online. I learned a lot from the maps & pictures page.
If you have iTunes, there’s an Internet radio station you can listen to that plays what I take to be Persian classical music. I listen all the time. The culture is older than Jesus.
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