As of 2012, “Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy” has become the second World Heritage Site of the Kingdom of Bahrain as the testimony of its millennia-old pearl collecting tradition and the globally significant single-product island economy and social system it produced.
“Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy” is a serial nomination consisting of 15 property components: three vast oyster beds located in the northern territorial waters of Bahrain, one seashore site at the southern tip of Bahrain’s Muharraq Island, and nine clusters of historic buildings consisting of seventeen architectural structures embedded in the urban fabric of Muharraq city. Taken together, the fifteen individual sites reflect the final expression and last remaining – and thus outstanding – example of a cultural tradition that dominated the Arabian Gulf from prehistory to the early 20th century.