The Gulf of Aqaba (Arabic: خليج العقبة‎; transliterated: Khalyj al-'Aqabah) is a large gulf located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. Its coastline is divided between four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. In Israel, it is often referred to as the Gulf of Eilat, after Eilat, the predominant Israeli city at its northern end (Hebrew: מפרץ אילת, transliterated: Mifratz Eilat).

The Gulf is located to the east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. This and the Gulf of Suez are the two gulfs extending from the northern portion of the Red Sea; the Gulf of Aqaba is east of the Gulf of Suez. Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia all have coastlines on the Gulf. It reaches a maximum depth of 1,850 m in its central area (the Gulf of Suez is significantly wider but less than 100 m deep).

The Gulf of Aqaba measures 24 kilometres (15 mi) at its widest point and stretches some 160 kilometres (99 mi) north from the Straits of Tiran to a point where the border of Israel meets the borders of Egypt and Jordan.

Aqaba (Arabic: العقبة‎, Al-ʻAqabah) is a coastal city in the far south of Jordan, the capital of Aqaba Governorate at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Aqaba is strategically important to Jordan as it is the country's only seaport. Aqaba is best known today as a diving and beach resort, but industrial activity remains important to the area, and the town is an exporter of phosphate and some shells. Aqaba is also the largest city on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Aqaba has been an inhabited settlement since 4000 BC profiting from its strategic location at the junction of trading routes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. The early settlement was presumably Edomite in ancient times. It was a centre of the Edomites, and then of the Arab Nabataeans, during the first century B.C. who populated the region extensively. The oldest known text in Arabic alphabet is an inscription found in Jabal Ram 50 km east of Aqaba.

The Bible refers to the area in (1 Kings 9:26) "King Solomon also built ships in Ezion-Geber, which is near Ayla in Edom, on the shores of the Red Sea." This verse probably refers to an Iron Age port city on the same ground as modern Aqaba.