Bahrain document photos online

For nearly 4,000 years, Bahrain ran on something stranger than oil: pearls. Its oyster beds off Muharraq were the beating heart of the Gulf's economy, and pearls were once worth more than diamonds, luring jeweller Jacques Cartier to the islands. Then in 1930 the Bank of France abruptly refused credit to pearl merchants, and the value of a Bahraini pearl collapsed by around 85 percent almost overnight. Two years later, in 1932, Bahrain became the first country in the Persian Gulf to strike oil, swapping one fortune for another and rewriting the future of the entire region.

• Passport power In the 2025 Henley Passport Index, the Bahraini passport ranks around 55th worldwide, opening roughly 87 destinations to its holders without a prior visa.
• e-Passport Bahrain's biometric passport, issued since March 2023, prints the holder's portrait three times using three different technologies on a single polycarbonate page to defeat forgery.
• Currency The Bahraini dinar is the world's second most valuable currency after Kuwait's, worth about US$2.66, and it splits not into 100 but into 1,000 tiny units called fils.
• Money quirk Bahrain's banknotes are bilingual in Arabic and English, and Saudi riyals are legally accepted at every till in the country at a fixed 10-to-1 rate, except for the 500-riyal note.
• Pearling heritage Bahrain's pearling sites on Muharraq are a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2012 as Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy, the last surviving trace of the pre-oil Gulf.
• First oil On 1 June 1932 Bahrain struck oil at about 1,122 metres, becoming the first Gulf state to do so, years before Saudi Arabia and Kuwait found theirs.
• Archipelago Bahrain is not one island but an archipelago of 33 natural islands; aggressive land reclamation has since pushed the total of islands and islets past 80.
• Independence Bahrain declared independence from Britain on 15 August 1971 and stayed a State until 14 February 2002, when it became a Kingdom and its ruler swapped the title of Emir for King.
• Living relic The 'Tree of Life,' a lone mesquite estimated at over 400 years old, thrives in Bahrain's waterless desert with no visible water source, a mystery botanists still cannot fully explain.