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Saudi Arabia

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"KSA" redirects here. For other uses, see KSA (disambiguation).

Saudi Arabia,[c] officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA),[d] is a country on the Arabian Peninsula in
Western Asia. It has a land area of about 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest
country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab world, and the largest in Western Asia. It is bordered by
the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country
off the east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt. Saudi Arabia is
the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain
consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. Its capital and largest city is Riyadh. The country
is home to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

‫( ْٱل َم ْملَكَة ْٱل َع َربِيَّة ٱل ُّسعُوْ ِديَّة‬Arabic)

Al-Mamlakah al-ʿArabīyah as-Suʿūdīyah

Flag of Saudi Arabia

Flag

Emblem of Saudi Arabia

Emblem

Motto: ‫ ُم َح َّم ٌد َرسُوْ ُل ٱهلل‬،‫اَل ِإ ٰلهَ ِإاَّل ٱهلل‬

"Lā ʾilāha ʾillā Llāh, Muḥammadur rasūlu Llāh"

"There is no god but God; Muhammad is the messenger of God."[1][a] (Shahada)

Anthem: ‫ٱلنَّ ِشيْد ْٱل َوطَنِي ٱل ُّسعُوْ ِدي‬

"an-Našīd al-Waṭanīy as-Suʿūdī"

"National Anthem of Saudi Arabia"

0:39

Location of Saudi Arabia

Capital

and largest city

Riyadh

24°39′N 46°46′E

Official languages

Arabic[5][6]

Ethnic groups (2014[7])

90% Arab

10% Afro-Arab

Religion (2010)[9]

93.0% Islam (official)[8]

85–90% Sunni

10–15% Shia

4.4% Christianity
1.1% Hinduism

0.3% Buddhism

0.3% Unaffiliated

Demonym(s)

Saudi

Saudi Arabian

Government

Unitary Islamic absolute monarchy

• King

Salman bin Abdulaziz

• Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman

Legislature

none[b]

Establishment

• First Saudi State

1727

• Second Saudi State

1824

• Emirate of Riyadh

13 January 1902

• Unification

23 September 1932

• Admitted to the United Nations

24 October 1945
• Current constitution

31 January 1992

Area

• Total

2,149,690[5] km2 (830,000 sq mi) (12th)

• Water (%)

0.7

Population

• 2019 estimate

34,218,000[12] (40th)

• Density

15/km2 (38.8/sq mi) (174th)

GDP (PPP)

2022 estimate

• Total

$1.87 trillion[13] (14th)

• Per capita

$51,600[13] (12th)

GDP (nominal)

2022 estimate

• Total

$876.15 billion[13] (18th)

• Per capita

$24,200[13] (35th)

Gini (2013)
45.9[14]

medium

HDI (2019)

Decrease 0.854[15]

very high · 40th

Currency

Saudi riyal (SR) (SAR)

Time zone

UTC+3 (AST)

Date format

dd/mm/yyyy (AH)

Driving side

right

Calling code

+966

ISO 3166 code

SA

Internet TLD

.sa

‫السعودية‬.

Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern-day Saudi Arabia, was the site of several
ancient cultures and civilizations; the prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of
human activity in the world.[16] The world's second-largest religion,[17] Islam, emerged in what is now
Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia
and created a single Islamic religious polity.[18] Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly
expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes
of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to parts of Central and South Asia in the east) in a
matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun
(632–661), Umayyad (661–750), Abbasid (750–1517), and Fatimid (909–1171) caliphates, as well as
numerous other dynasties in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of mainly four distinct historical regions: Hejaz,
Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir).[19] The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
was founded in 1932 by King Abdulaziz (known as Ibn Saud in the West). He united the four regions into
a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral
home of his family, the Al Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy, where the king, the
princes of the large Al Saud royal family and the country’s traditional elites have overseen a highly
authoritarian regime.[20][21][22] The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam
has been described as a "predominant feature of Saudi culture",[20][21] although the power of the
religious establishment has been significantly eroded in the 2010s.[23] In its Basic Law, Saudi Arabia
continues to define itself as a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its official religion, Arabic as its
official language, and Riyadh as its capital. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy
Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca) and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two
holiest places in Islam.

Petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern
Province.[24][25] Saudi Arabia has since become the world's second-largest oil producer (behind the US)
and the world's largest oil exporter, controlling the world's second-largest oil reserves and the sixth
largest gas reserves.[26] The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a very
high Human Development Index[27] and is the only Arab country to be part of the G20 major
economies.[28][29]

The kingdom spends 8% of its GDP on the military (highest in the world after Oman),[30] which places it
as the world's third biggest military spender behind the United States and China,[31] and the world's
largest arms importer from 2015 to 2019, receiving half of all the US arms exports to the Middle East.
[32][33] According to the BICC, Saudi Arabia is the 28th most militarized country in the world and
possesses the second-best military equipment qualitatively in the region, after Israel.[34] By the late
2010s, there have been continual calls for halting of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, mainly due to alleged
war crimes in Yemen[35] and especially following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.[36][37] The
state has attracted criticism for a variety of reasons, including its role in the Yemeni Civil War, alleged
sponsorship of Islamic terrorism and its poor human rights record, which has been characterized by the
excessive and often extrajudicial use of capital punishment,[38] failure to adopt adequate measures
against human trafficking, state-sponsored discrimination against religious minorities and atheists,[39]
[40] and antisemitism, and its strict interpretation of Sharia law.[41][42]
Saudi Arabia is considered both a regional and middle power.[43][44] The Saudi economy is the largest
in the Middle East and eighteenth-largest in the world.[45] Saudi Arabia also has one of the world's
youngest populations, with approximately 50 per cent of its population of 34.2 million being under 25
years old.[46] In addition to being a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia is an active
and founding member of the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League, Arab Air
Carriers Organization and OPEC.

Etymology

History

Politics

Geography

Administrative divisions

Economy

Demographics

Culture

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Last edited 4 days ago by InternetArchiveBot

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