50 Fun Facts About Bahrain

What is the capital and largest city of Bahrain?

Manama was named Arab Capital of Culture in 2012.

Bahrain is connected by the King Fahd Causeway to which neighbouring country?

The 25 km link opened in 1986 and was the first bridge joining an island nation to its nearest continent.

The name Bahrain is Arabic for what?

Which two seas is still debated: possibly the salt water of the Gulf and the fresh water that bubbles up from springs beneath it.

Bahrain is the third-smallest nation in Asia. Which two are smaller?

Land reclamation has actually made Bahrain bigger, from 665 to about 780 square kilometres.

Which Bronze Age trading civilisation linking Mesopotamia and the Indus was centred on Bahrain?

Sumerian myth described it as a paradise without sickness or death.

Which biblical story may Sumerian myths of Bahrain as an ageless, predator-free paradise have inspired?

The tale of Enki and Ninhursag is one of the oldest paradise myths on record.

The ancient Greeks knew Bahrain by which name, when Alexander's admiral Nearchus landed there?

It is thought to be a Hellenised form of Tilmun; the island's Greek-era coins showed a seated Zeus.

Which sect seized Bahrain in 899 and later stole the Black Stone from Mecca, holding it for over 20 years?

The stone was returned in 951, tossed into a mosque in Kufa with a note reading "By command we took it, and by command we have brought it back."

Which European power ruled Bahrain from 1521 until it was expelled by Shah Abbas of Persia in 1602?

Their fort still stands on the tell at Qal'at al-Bahrain, which is why the site is also called the Portuguese Fort.

Which royal family has ruled Bahrain since capturing it in 1783?

They came from the Bani Utbah tribal alliance and were based at Zubarah in what is now Qatar before crossing to the islands.

Bahrain declared independence from Britain in which year?

The Shah of Iran had claimed the islands, but accepted a UN-supervised referendum first.

In 2002 Bahrain changed its formal name from the State of Bahrain to what?

The ruler's title changed from Emir to King at the same moment.

Bahrain's 2011 protests centred on which capital landmark, whose monument was later demolished?

The uprising is also known as the 14 February uprising; Saudi and Emirati troops entered the country a month later.

Bahrain was the first place on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf to discover oil. In what year?

The strike, below Jabal ad Dukhan, came before its neighbours', and Bahrain later diversified into banking as the oil ran low.

Before oil, Bahrain was famed for which industry, the world's finest into the 19th century?

Around 400 vessels worked the oyster beds before World War I; Japanese cultured pearls later killed the trade.

In which year did the Bahrain Pearling Path become the country's second World Heritage Site?

It links three oyster beds, a seashore fort and 17 historic merchant houses.

Qal'at al-Bahrain, the country's first World Heritage Site, is a tell with occupation going back to about when?

Seven stratified layers include Kassites, Greeks, Portuguese and Persians, making it the oldest fortification in the Gulf.

What do the five white points on Bahrain's serrated flag represent?

A serrated edge was added in 1932 to distinguish it from neighbours; Qatar's similar flag is maroon with nine points.

Bahrain's flag is often confused with the flag of which neighbour, which is maroon with nine points?

White was first added to Bahrain's plain red flag in 1820, to distinguish treaty ships from pirates.

The Bahraini dinar is divided into how many fils?

Prices are written with three decimal places; it is the world's second-most valuable currency unit after Kuwait's dinar.

Which currency did the Bahraini dinar replace when it was introduced in 1965?

Ten rupees bought one dinar; Abu Dhabi also used the Bahraini dinar until switching to the dirham in 1973.

Bahrain's highest point, Jabal ad Dukhan, rises to only about how high?

The name means Mountain of Smoke, for the haze that gathers around it on humid days; the first oil well sits below it.

Bahrain's Tree of Life, a lone mesquite over 400 years old, is remarkable because it grows where?

Its roots reach some 50 metres down, which may explain the mystery.

Bahrain's national animal is which antelope, once hunted to extinction on the island?

It was the first animal ever to move back from "extinct in the wild" to merely "vulnerable" on the IUCN list, in 2011.

The Hawar Islands host the world's largest breeding colony of which seabird?

Up to 100,000 pairs nest there; the surrounding seas also hold the world's second-largest dugong gathering after Australia's.

A territorial dispute over the Hawar Islands between Bahrain and Qatar was settled in 2001 by which body?

The islands lie barely 2 km from Qatar's coast but about 19 km from Bahrain's main islands; Bahrain kept them.

Bahrain hosted the first Formula One Grand Prix in the Middle East in which year?

The circuit at Sakhir was designed by Hermann Tilke, who also drew Malaysia's Sepang.

Since 2014, the Bahrain Grand Prix has been held in what unusual way?

It became F1's second night race after Singapore; Lewis Hamilton won the first floodlit edition.

Which year's Bahrain Grand Prix was cancelled because of anti-government protests?

The race was moved to Malaysia in 2026 as well, that time because of the war with Iran.

The first corner of the Bahrain International Circuit was renamed in 2014 after which driver?

It came weeks after his near-fatal skiing accident; he had won the circuit's inaugural race a decade earlier.

The Bahrain World Trade Center was the first skyscraper in the world to do what?

Three 225 kW turbines sit on skybridges between the twin towers and supply up to 15% of their power.

Which numbered US Navy fleet has its headquarters in Bahrain?

Around 6,000 American military personnel are based there; the site was HMS Juffair under the British until 1971.

Which city was Bahrain's capital until 1932 and now houses the international airport?

It sits on its own island directly across the water from the capital, joined by causeways.

Which national dish of Bahrain is meat or fish served over rice cooked in a spiced broth?

Muhammar, a sweet rice with dates always served with fried fish, is another island signature.

Bahraini halwa, the traditional sweet, is based on which main ingredient?

Sugar, nuts, saffron, rose water and cardamom go in as well; it comes out as a sticky, jewel-coloured jelly.

What is Bahrain's national beverage?

Karak tea is what you are more likely to be handed as a guest, but coffee holds the official title.

Bahrain's football team had its best AFC Asian Cup result in 2004. Where did it finish?

They beat Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals, lost 4-3 to Japan, then fell to Iran in the third-place match.

Bahrain won its first Arabian Gulf Cup in which year?

They also took the WAFF Championship that year under coach Helio Sousa, then won the Gulf Cup again in January 2025.

Which South Asian country supplies Bahrain's largest expatriate community, mostly from Kerala?

Expatriates outnumber Bahraini nationals overall, and Malayalam newspapers are sold on the island.

Bahrain replaced which war-torn city as the Middle East's financial hub in the 1970s and 1980s?

Lebanon's civil war drove its banks out, and Bahrain had already begun diversifying away from oil.

In 2008 Bahrain appointed Houda Nonoo as ambassador to the United States, making her the first what?

Bahrain's tiny Jewish community, once several hundred strong, mostly left after 1948.

Which British adviser effectively ran Bahrain from 1926 to 1957 and abolished slavery there in 1937?

He also proposed renaming the Persian Gulf the "Arabian Gulf", an idea London rejected at the time.

Bahrain's first refinery, built in 1936, was the first in the Gulf outside which country?

It processed more crude than Bahrain's own small field could supply, so oil was piped in from the Saudi mainland.

Aside from oil, what is Bahrain's second-largest export product?

The Alba smelter is one of the biggest in the world, though banking is now the economy's real second leg.

Which annual arts festival has Bahrain hosted every March since 2005?

It brings international musicians and artists to the island; a Summer Festival and an October music festival follow.

King Hamad bin Isa succeeded his father as Emir in which year, before becoming Bahrain's first king?

He released political prisoners and proposed the National Action Charter that led to the 2002 constitution.

Bahrain's fresh water is famous for doing what, as travellers noted since antiquity?

Divers once filled goatskins from underwater springs; it is one theory for the "two seas" in the country's name.

For centuries after the Greek era, the main island of Bahrain was known to Arabs by what name?

Awal was also an ox deity worshipped on the island; a large statue to it once stood in Muharraq.

At which 1782 battle did the Bani Utbah defeat Nasr Al-Madhkur, leading to their capture of Bahrain?

Zubarah, on the Qatar peninsula, was then the power base of the Utub tribes, including the Al Khalifa who still rule.

Which US company's subsidiary discovered oil in Bahrain in 1932?

The Bahrain Petroleum Company, Bapco, made the strike, the first on the Arabian side of the Gulf.