Using the long-term wind time series, coastal upwelling was investigated in the northern Persian Gulf. The shoreline was divided into 34 segments from NW to SE and the daily Ekman transport components were computed. Based on the Ekman transport components, a coastal upwelling index was calculated. Starting from these, in this paper we present, for the fi rst time in this region, the annual cycles of the coastal upwelling. The annual cycles revealed the most intense coastal upwelling in the central areas, located about 51° E - 53° E, including three peaks in June, November and February. In addition, a simple optimization procedure has been done to determine the best shoreline angle for the favourable conditions of coastal upwelling occurrence at each segment and month. To investigate the results, sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level anomalies (SLAs) were analysed. A cross-correlation analysis was done on the daily time series and indicated that the SST decreases more in the segments with more intense coastal upwelling along the northern shoreline. The linear temporal trend was also applied to SLA gridded time series; the results show the sea level anomaly responses to wind-driven coastal upwelling.