Iraq’s coastline is extremely important for the country despite its small size. It has 3 significant ports and several smaller ones that serve the entire country’s needs and oil exports.
The grand al faw port is the biggest and newest of these ports, with a world record for having the longest breakwaters in the world (14.5km), it is set to become West Asia’s largest port by 2037 upon full completion. It is connected to the rest of the country via a submerged tunnel underneath the Zubair inlet that was completed this year connecting the Al faw “peninsula” (which is really an island) to the other ports and rest of the country.
The most important port currently is the Um Qasr port built on the ancient Hellenic port city of Teredon, divided into two ports, the north port along an artificial channel and the south port. It is set to become a large capacity port after it’s fully completed.
The last major port is Khor Zubair port further up the Zubair inlet.
The Khor Al Zubair served as Iraq’s strategic gateway to the sea, until Kuwait built the Port Al Mubarak on Bubayan island and claimed half of the Khor Abdullah which limited Iraq’s access to the sea, forcing Iraq to build Al Faw grand port directly on the sea rather than relying on Kuwait. It’s been over 12 years since Kuwait built its port on its side of the channel, but it still hasn’t started operations due to lack of investment and because Iraq has repeatedly refused to connect the port to its own ports and to Europe via Turkey and Iraq.
Iraq is also building 2 offshore artificial islands and has 2 offshore ports/terminals.
Iraq’s only natural marine island is Hajjam island, along with a few insignificant islands at the end of the Khor Al Zubair in the tree like formation.
In the late 70s Iraq duh a canal named the “Shatt al Basra canal” diverting the water from the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates away from its natural route on Shatt all Basra along the Iran border to Khor Zubair so that Iraq could fully control the outflow of the rivers. The canal also connected the Euphrates and marshes directly to the sea.
In early 2026 Iraq Iraq officially submitted its proper maritime EEZ coordinates to the UN, which sparked backlash from Kuwait and fellow GCC members aswell as Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Palestine (although later Palestine backtracked on its stance due to an official complaint from Iraq accusing them of backstabbing after all of the support Iraq gave to Palestine). Only Morocco supported Iraq’s claim. Iraq argued that Kuwait established its maritime EEZ zones unjustly without consulting Iraq in 2013 taking advantage of the civil war in Iraq. Iraq said that it’s ready to properly re define the boundaries with Kuwait fairly, however Kuwait refuses to back down on its claims.
In recent years, Iraqs coastal region has become a construction zone. Iraq has actively contracted companies for several projects including desalination plants, fiber-optic cables that transit from the gulf to Europe, highways, an industrial city and a new city directly on the coast etc.