A Study of the Name of the Persian Gulf in the Maps of Travelers in the 16th Century

The name of Persian Gulf is one of the oldest names which has been used to refer to the waterway between Iran and Arabian Peninsula since centuries before Islam. When Man started historiography, they called it using different names including “Pars Sea”, “Fars Sea”, and the Persian Gulf. In spite of several political efforts to change its name, many documents, proofs, and historical maps confirm that its original name is the Persian Gulf. In the 16th century and at the beginning of the Renaissance, Europeans had great achievements in several sciences including geography and cartography. Following a descriptive-analytic method and relying on library documents and sources, this study investigates the name of the Persian Gulf in some of the maps developed by European world travelers in the 16th century. The findings of the study indicate that the name of the Persian Gulf has been written differently in European maps. In eight cases it is called “Sinus Perscicus”; in one case “Mar Persio”, and in one case “Golfo Persico”, all demonstrating the fact that this historical waterway has always been called the Persian Gulf.