Qualla: Bubiyan Island

Bubiyan Island: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The world's largest breeding colony of crab-plovers nests on an island that most maps mark as empty. Bubiyan, 863 square kilometers of salt marsh and tidal mud flat at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, is Kuwait's biggest island and one of its strangest -- a place fought over by nations but inhabited primarily by birds. During high spring tides, seawater creeps across the low-lying flats and the island nearly disappears. It has been a military base, a diplomatic flashpoint, a wetland sanctuary, and now the future site of one of the Gulf's most ambitious port projects.

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Bubiyan Island: Built by Two Rivers

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bubiyan owes its existence to the Tigris and Euphrates. The island formed from sediment carried downstream by the Tigris-Euphrates river system and deposited where the Shatt al-Arab meets the Persian Gulf. It is the largest of eight islands clustered just southwest of the river m...

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Bubiyan Island: Sovereignty at Gunpoint

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Iraq long considered Bubiyan its own territory, and the dispute over the island fed directly into the tensions that led to the Gulf War. During the 1991 conflict, the area suffered a massive oil spill and four spans of the bridge connecting Bubiyan to the mainland were destroyed....

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Bubiyan Island: Where the Flyways Cross

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After Kuwait became the 169th signatory of the Ramsar Convention, the Mubarak al-Kabeer reserve on Bubiyan was designated as the country's first Wetland of International Importance. The 50,948-hectare reserve encompasses small lagoons and shallow salt marshes that serve as a crit...

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Bubiyan Island: A Port for the Silk Road

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bubiyan's next transformation is already underway. The Mubarak Al Kabeer Port, part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, represents the first phase of Kuwait's Silk City project -- an ambitious plan to develop the country's northern coast. In March 2021, Kuwait and Pakistan annou...

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