With the Türkmenbaşy Peninsula to the north and the Cheleken Peninsula to the south, the gulf extends westwards into the sea for 46 km and has an 18 km wide mouth.

At its northwest corner are the Bala-Ishem salt marshes which mark the mouth of the dried-up Uzboy River.

It became part of the Hazar Nature Reserve in 1968 and was designated as a Ramsar site in 2008.

[1] Among the animals in the bay the Krasnovodsk herring (Alosa braschnikowi nirchi) and the Caspian seal deserve mention.

It was first accurately cartographed by Fedor Ivanovich Soimonov during the 1719 Caspian Expedition which surveyed the Caspian Sea from 1719 to 1727.