59 Fun Facts About Oman

Which line of latitude crosses northern Oman, passing just south of the capital?

The Tropic of Cancer runs just south of Oman's capital, so around 21 June the midday sun stands almost directly overhead there.

Oman shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and which other country?

Yemen meets Oman in the far southwest; during the Cold War, Marxist South Yemen backed a rebellion across that border in Oman's Dhofar province.

Which Omani exclave sits on the Strait of Hormuz, cut off from the rest of the country by the UAE?

Musandam's deep, fjord-like inlets line the strait's southern shore, giving Oman a share of control over a channel that carried over 25 percent of the world's seaborne oil in 2022.

Which young republic in the Americas signed a treaty with Oman's ruler in 1833?

The United States first opened relations with Oman through the 1833 treaty, struck when the sultanate was the most powerful state in Arabia.

Which dynasty, founded in the 1740s, still rules Oman?

The Al Bu Said dynasty began with Ahmad bin Said, a governor of the port of Sohar who displaced the previous ruling house in the 1740s; his descendants have held the throne ever since.

Ancient Sumerian tablets referred to Oman by what name, linked to its copper?

Magan. Mesopotamian tablets from the late third millennium BC name it as the land their copper came from, shipped overseas from mines in what is now Oman.

Which European power held Oman's coast from the early 1500s until Omani forces drove it out in 1650?

Portugal. Afonso de Albuquerque's fleet sacked the coast's ports in 1507 to control the Gulf trade route, and two forts Portugal built above the main harbour still stand.

Fort Jesus, which fell to Omani forces in 1698 after a long siege, guarded which East African port?

Mombasa. Fort Jesus had commanded the harbour since the 1590s, and once it fell the rest of the coast as far south as Tanzania passed to Oman.

The 19th-century Omani ruler Said bin Sultan moved his capital to which island?

Zanzibar. Its clove plantations made the island the heart of his trading empire, and after his death the realm was split between two heirs, leaving it a separate sultanate.

Gwadar, an Omani possession for over a century, was sold in 1958 to which country?

Pakistan. The Khan of Kalat gave the fishing port to an exile from Oman's ruling family in the 1780s; he kept it after taking the throne, and Oman held on until 1958.

Omani novelist Jokha Alharthi became the first Arabic-language author to win which prize, for Celestial Bodies in 2019?

International Booker Prize. She shared the £50,000 award equally with her translator, Marilyn Booth, and became the first Omani woman novelist to appear in English.

Two squadrons of which British regiment ended a 1950s rebellion in Oman with a surprise assault on the Jebel Akhdar plateau?

The SAS. Two squadrons fresh from the jungles of Malaya feinted on one side of the mountain, climbed the other by surprise and quickly overwhelmed the rebels.

Sultan Said bin Taimur was deposed in a 1970 palace coup by which relative?

His son. Qaboos, kept a virtual prisoner for years by a father who had banned radios and sunglasses, seized the palace with British support and exiled him.

What was Oman's official name before Sultan Qaboos shortened it soon after taking power in 1970?

Muscat and Oman. The double name set the sultan's coast beside the interior, which long had rulers of its own; Qaboos dropped the first half as he unified the country.

Which practice did Sultan Qaboos finally outlaw in Oman in 1970?

Slavery. The trade had once been a key part of Oman's economy, run through its East African empire, and abolishing it was among Qaboos's first reforms.

Sultan Qaboos named no public heir, so what settled his succession?

Sealed letter. When he died in 2020 the ruling family had three days to agree on a sultan, but chose instead to open the envelope Qaboos had secretly left, and followed it.

Who succeeded Qaboos as Sultan of Oman?

Haitham bin Tariq. Qaboos had no children, so the throne passed to a cousin: the Oxford-educated former culture minister, who pledged to keep Oman friendly with all nations.

Sultan Qaboos was born in 1940 in which southern Omani city?

Salalah. The old sultan later withdrew to the southern port for good, safer there from plots and petitioners, and Qaboos was sequestered in its palace until the 1970 coup.

Before taking the throne, Sultan Qaboos graduated from which military academy?

Sandhurst. After graduating he served with a British Army unit in West Germany, but once home he was shut away in a palace, a virtual prisoner until the 1970 coup.

Which branch of Islam, rare almost everywhere else, has been Oman's dominant tradition for more than a thousand years?

Ibadi. The school began as a moderate offshoot of the Kharijites, the early rebels who broke with the caliph Ali, and it outlived every harsher branch of that movement.

The Omani rial is divided into 1,000 of which smaller unit?

Baisa. The word comes by way of Arabic from the Hindi paisa, a relic of the rupees that circulated in Oman until the country brought in a rial of its own in 1970.

Since 1986 one Omani rial has been fixed at about 2.6 units of which foreign currency?

US dollar. Oman's central bank says a fixed rate best suits an open economy that depends on oil exports, and it has not changed the peg since.

What traditional weapon appears on Oman's national flag and forms part of men's formal dress?

A khanjar dagger. Once everyday wear, the curved blade is now kept for weddings and state occasions, and Oman presents khanjars to official guests as gifts.

Before Sultan Qaboos took power in 1970, what did Oman's national flag look like?

Plain red. The banner had flown over Oman for centuries; months after his coup Qaboos kept the colour and added white for peace and green for the fertility of the land.

Jebel Shams, Oman's highest peak, has an Arabic name meaning what?

Mountain of Sun. The peak is best known not for its summit but for the view from its rim into Wadi Ghul, a sheer gorge nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Arabia.

Oman's Dhofar coast turns green each summer thanks to a monsoon season known locally as what?

Khareef. The word is simply Arabic for autumn, but in Dhofar it means the misty monsoon of June to early September, when Omanis and other Gulf Arabs flock south to see green hills.

Which aromatic resin, harvested in Dhofar, gives its name to an Omani UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Frankincense. The Land of Frankincense site protects the trees of Wadi Dawkah with a caravan oasis and two old ports, relics of a trade that was among the most important in the ancient world.

Which Omani fortress, added in 1987, was the country's first UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Bahla Fort. Its walls of unbaked brick were crumbling so fast that UNESCO put it on the danger list the very next year, and it stayed there until 2004.

Oman's sanctuary for which animal became the first site ever deleted from UNESCO's World Heritage List, in 2007?

Arabian oryx. Oman cut the reserve by 90 percent to make way for oil prospecting after poaching had shrunk the herd from 450 animals to 65, and UNESCO struck it off.

What are Oman's aflaj, five of which UNESCO added to its World Heritage List in 2006?

Irrigation channels. Using gravity alone they carry water from underground springs to villages, where each share of the flow is still timed by watching the sun and stars.

Oman's city of Sohar is claimed in local legend as the birthplace of which Arabian Nights character?

Sinbad. The tales themselves make him a merchant of Baghdad who sails from Basra, but the local claim suits a town that was one of Arabia's great trading ports a thousand years ago.

The Sharqiya Sands desert in eastern Oman was formerly known by the name of which Bedouin tribe?

Bani Wahiba. The rename has not stuck: the dunes are still called the Wahiba Sands locally and in most guidebooks, after the Bedouin who live among them.

Oman's central desert is a notable scientific source of what?

Meteorites. Search teams comb its gravel plains for them, and the finds include rocks blasted off the Moon, such as a lunar stone picked up there in January 2002.

Oman's traditional dish shuwa is meat cooked for up to two days in what?

An underground clay oven. Shuwa is festival food: the meat is rubbed with spices, wrapped in leaves and lowered into a pit that a whole village often shares, then dug up for the feast.

Which sweet is traditionally served with coffee as part of Omani hospitality?

Halwa. The Omani kind is a sticky sweet of sugar, saffron and nuts that takes hours to cook in a great pot, and traditional makers still do it over a wood fire.

What is the name of the ankle-length collarless gown worn by nearly every Omani man?

Its tassel at the neckline can be soaked in perfume; the bisht is the formal cloak worn over it and the kummah is the embroidered cap.

Which Omani coastal town was one of the most famous shipbuilding centres of the Indian Ocean?

Sur. Its dhow-building yards made the town rich, launching wooden ships that traded as far away as China.

Oman's Batinah coast and Fujairah in the UAE both stage a bloodless local variant of which sport?

Bullfighting. In Omani bull-butting there is no matador: two hefty Brahma bulls lock horns until one backs off, with ropes ready to pull them apart.

Which trophy did Oman's footballers first win in 2009, on home soil?

Arabian Gulf Cup. Oman had lost the 2004 final on penalties and the 2007 final by a single goal, both times to the hosts, before winning at home itself.

Because of Oman's old East African empire, which African language is still spoken in some Omani families?

Swahili. Many Omanis descend from families who lived for generations on the East African coast, and some who came back spoke it and English more readily than Arabic.

By 2026 Oman's men had never reached a football World Cup, but in which sport had they played several World Cups?

Cricket. Oman reached its first T20 World Cup in 2016 and beat Ireland in its opening game, then co-hosted the 2021 tournament with the United Arab Emirates.

Oman hosted secret talks in 2013 between Washington and which country?

Iran. Sultan Qaboos had kept good relations with both sides, and the meetings he hosted paved the way for the landmark nuclear agreement two years later.

Which feature of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque was the world's largest of its kind when the mosque opened in 2001?

Its carpet. The hand-woven piece weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to make, and it kept its record only until Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Mosque opened with a larger one in 2007.

In 2018 an Austrian-led crew in spacesuits spent weeks in Oman's Dhofar desert rehearsing a human mission to where?

Mars. Directed by a mission control back in Austria, the small field crew tested rovers, spacesuit procedures and life-detection experiments in terrain picked to stand in for the Martian surface.

The Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1985, was unusual for being made up entirely of whom?

Omani nationals. Sultan Qaboos, a devoted classical music fan, had foreign musicians brought in to train the recruits rather than to fill the seats.

What kind of disaster was Gonu, which killed about 50 people in Oman and disrupted its oil production in June 2007?

A cyclone. Gonu was the strongest storm to strike the Arabian Peninsula in decades, a rarity on a desert coast, and Oman counts it as its worst natural disaster.

In 2020 Oman led the world in which kind of spending as a share of GDP, at about 11 percent?

Defence. Oman's military budget rose slightly while the pandemic shrank its economy, pushing the burden to an estimated 11 percent of GDP, more than four times the world average.

At Oman's 2010 census, the largest community of foreign workers by far came from which country?

India. The census counted about 465,000 Indians, more than four times the next group, a tie that goes back to the merchant families from the subcontinent long settled in Oman's ports.

Which fruit dominates Oman's orchards, taking up close to half of all its farmed land?

Dates. Oman has an estimated eight million palms, and the fruit once helped guard its forts: boiling date syrup was poured through slots onto attackers at the gates.

What revealed the ancient tracks leading to Oman's lost city of Ubar?

Space images. Satellite and radar views showed old caravan tracks converging on one spot in the sands, where a dig uncovered the buried fortress that explorers announced in 1992 as Ubar.

In 2021 Oman's sultan rewrote the Basic Statute to give the country its first-ever what?

Crown prince. Until then the ruling family had three days after a sultan's death to choose his successor; the new rule made the sultan's eldest son the heir.

Which vast sand desert formed a barrier between Oman and the Arabian interior, turning its people towards the sea?

The Empty Quarter. Hard to cross even with modern desert vehicles, the sands cut Oman off from the rest of Arabia for centuries, so its contacts with the world ran by ship.

The Bronze Age stone tombs at Bat, a World Heritage Site in Oman, are named for their likeness to what?

Beehives. Some 5,000 years ago builders stacked cut stone into rounded towers on the ridges around Bat, part of the most complete settlement and burial complex of its age in eastern Arabia.

Which organisation did Oman join in 1971, alongside Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE?

United Nations. Under the old sultan Oman had been almost closed to the world; Qaboos opened it up and took the seat within 15 months of his coup.

The Jewel of Muscat, a replica 9th-century Arab ship, sailed from Oman in 2010 to a permanent home in which country?

Singapore. Built to match a wreck found off Indonesia, the dhow's planks were sewn together with coconut-fibre rope instead of nails, and it sailed there in stages by way of Sri Lanka.

Which Omani beach is famous for the green turtles that come ashore there to nest?

Ras al-Jinz. Female green turtles swim hundreds of miles to nest here, laying their eggs near where they themselves hatched decades earlier.

Which whole spit-roasted fish, served with lemon rice, is the Omani dish mashuai?

Kingfish. Oman shuts the fishery for two months each year, from mid-August, banning even the sale of the fish so that the stock can breed.

Which continental multi-sport event did Muscat host in 2010?

Asian Beach Games. Oman built a seaside sports city at Al-Musannah for the second edition of the Games, a festival on sand and sea that ended with Thailand top of the medal table.

Which Tour de France winner won the Tour of Oman in both 2013 and 2014?

Chris Froome. In 2013 he beat Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans on Oman's roads, months before his first Tour de France title, and he came back to win again a year later.