Coral reefs are largely restricted to the southern area and include a range of offshore platform and smaller patch reefs, and nearshore patch and fringing reef assemblages along the southern coastline. All are in shallow water (<15m) where the greatest growth and diversity is shallower than 10m. The best developed reefs are at Umm Al-Maradem, Qaro and Kubbar, which are typical coral 'cays'.

The most northerly reefs in the Gulf lie around the southern islands, particularly the islands of Kubbar, Qaru and Um Al-Maradim, where they occur in extreme oceanographic conditions with relatively high sediment loading. In this extreme environment, species diversity is relatively low (35 species). Overall the zooxanthellate coral fauna includes 29 species, and the others are not usually considered as ‘reef builders’. Coral communities occur as platforms, patches or fringing coral assemblages and the most important and dominant reef builders are Porites harrisoni, Acropora arabensis and A. downingi. Considerable new research has taken place in Kuwait recently, resulting from surveys connected with the claims for compensation following the Gulf War. The distribution and composition of the coral communities and the fish life they support were reviewed recently.

In Kuwait 35 coral species have been recorded, including 29 reef-building corals, and 6 non-reef-building species. The main coral reefs are patch and platform reefs around the islands of Kubbar, Qaro and Um Al-Maradem. Kubbar Island has least species diversity and the predominantly Porites reef extends 1.3 km around the island and up to 900 m from the shore. The most diverse coral reefs occur around the small island of Qaro (about 200 m long) with the reef extending 1.3 km around the island and up to 600 m from the shore. Acropora dominates the coral community. Um Al-Maradim Island is 550 m long with a 1.4 km long reef extending 1.1 km from the shore. The dominant species are Porites, Acropora and Stylophora. There are also small patch reefs. Artificial reefs constructed with concrete blocks of different shapes and sizes have been deployed since 1995 on Jaber Al-Kuwait Reefs by the Kuwait Dive Team to compensate for the slow deterioration of natural reefs.