ABSTRACT
Oman lies at the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, on the east side of the Arabian Peninsula; the country is surrounded on three sides by coastline extending to 1700 km, from the frontier of Ra’s al-Khaymah, near Ra’s Musandam on the Arabian Gulf, then from the Gulf of Oman via the straits of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea to the frontier of the Yemen. It currently covers 320 000 square kilometers.24 Its population exceeds 2 million and, according to the British historian, J.B. Kelly, it houses about 200 principal tribes and innumerable lesser ones.25
