{"id":17489,"date":"2026-05-07T15:45:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=17489"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:27:19","slug":"gulf-of-aden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/gulf-of-aden\/","title":{"rendered":"Gulf of Aden"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Gulf of Aden Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yemen\u2019s coast guard recently reported that unidentified armed men hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Shabwa province and diverted it towards the Gulf of Aden near Somali waters. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Gulf of Aden<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>extension of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/indian-ocean\/\" target=\"_blank\">Indian Ocean<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, located <\/span><b>between the Arabian Peninsula<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (north) and the <\/span><b>Horn of Africa (south).\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>connects <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the<\/span><b> Red Sea <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the West <\/span><b>and the Arabian Sea <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the East <\/span><b>via the Strait of Bab el Mandeb.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gulf is named after \u201c<\/span><b>Aden<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d a<\/span><b> port city on Yemen\u2019s coast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>one of the largest natural harbors<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the world, with an area of about 70 sq.km. of sheltered water.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is approximately 900 km long and 500 km wide.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>bounded to the south by Somalia and the Socotra Islands (part of Yemen<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), <\/span><b>north by Yemen,<\/b> <b>east by the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/arabian-sea\/\" target=\"_blank\">Arabian Sea<\/a>,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>west by Djibouti.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gulf is <\/span><b>connected <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the<\/span><b> Somali Sea <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the south <\/span><b>by the Guardafui Channel.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>In the west<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it <\/span><b>narrows into the Gulf of Tadjoura, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">near Djibouti.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>dominant relief feature<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the <\/span><b>Sheba Ridge<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an <\/span><b>extension of the Indian Ocean ridge system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which extends along the middle of the gulf.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Gulf of Aden is strongly influenced by the <\/span><b>upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich waters during the southwest and northeast monsoons <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and is characterized by a prevailing <\/span><b>high-energy climate.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Compared to the neighbouring Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden has a <\/span><b>lower saline content.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Gulf is filled with <\/span><b>numerous islands belonging to Yemen and Somalia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the<\/span><b> major cities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> near the gulf include<\/span><b> Aden, Mukalla, Ahnwar, Balhaf, Berbera, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bosaso, and Djibouti City.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Major Ports<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><b>Aden in Yemen, and Berbera and Bosaso in Somalia.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also a<\/span><b> critical part of the Suez Canal shipping route<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which <\/span><b>connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are an estimated <\/span><b>21,000 ships<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> passing through the Gulf <\/span><b>annually<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, making it one of the busiest bodies of water.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An estimated <\/span><b>11% of seaborne petroleum<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> passes through the Gulf of Aden en route to the Mediterranean or Arabian Seas.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/world\/yemen-says-armed-men-hijack-oil-tanker-off-shabwa-coast-steer-it-toward-gulf-of-aden-ws-l-10069771.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">N18<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gulf of Aden is a strategic waterway connecting the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Know its location, geography, major ports, trade importance, and global shipping role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":65857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2985,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-17489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-gulf-of-aden","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102357,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489\/revisions\/102357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}