[7] It is also a popular spot among domestic tourists due to its white sand beaches and coral reefs that attract many marine life enthusiasts.

[2] The bay of Khor Fakkan faces the northeast and is protected from prevailing winds by a jetty serving terminal for container ships.

[11][12] Khor Fakkan in Arabic means "Creek of the Two Jaws" which the city is named due to its position in a crescent shaped bay and being flanked by two headlands.

There is evidence of post holes from the wooden uprights of the traditional barasti huts known as areesh, similar to those found at Tell Abraq which dates from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC.

At the dawn of the 16th century, it and its port were defended by a wide walled belt facing the land, closing the gorge that, in the mountain range parallel to the coast, allows communication with the interior.

[19] In 1580 the Venetian jeweler Gasparo Balbi noted "Chorf" in a list of places on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, which is considered by historians to indicate Khor Fakkan.

[21][22] In 1737, long after the Portuguese had been expelled from Arabia, the Persians again invaded Khor Fakkan, with some 5,000 men and 1,580 horses, with the help of the Dutch, during their intervention in the Omani civil war.

[23] In 1765 Khor Fakkan belonged to a sheikh of the Al Qasimi, Sharjah's ruling family, according to the German traveler Carsten Niebuhr.

There is a map by the French cartographer Rigobert Bonne dating to about 1770 that shows the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf and includes Khor Fakkan.

[5] At the turn of the 19th century, Lorimer notes that Khor Fakkan had about 5,000 date trees and was home to about 150 houses of Naqbiyin and Arabicised Persians, amounting to some 800 people.

[30][31] The port is part of the Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the south via the southern tip of India to Mombasa, from there through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, there to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the North Sea.

[41][42][43] The highest building in the city is the Al Suhub Rest House, which overlooks Khor Fakkan from a height of 580 metres above sea level.