Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. The king's official title is the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The modern Saudi state was founded in 1932 by ABD AL-AZIZ bin Abd al-Rahman AL SAUD (Ibn Saud) after a 30-year campaign to unify most of the Arabian Peninsula. One of his male descendants rules the country today, as required by the country's 1992 Basic Law. Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia accepted the Kuwaiti royal family and 400,000 refugees while allowing Western and Arab troops to deploy on its soil for the liberation of Kuwait the following year. The continuing presence of foreign troops on Saudi soil after the liberation of Kuwait became a source of tension between the royal family and the public until all operational US troops left the country in 2003. Major terrorist attacks in May and November 2003 spurred a strong ongoing campaign against domestic terrorism and extremism. US troops returned to the Kingdom in October 2019 after attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure.
From 2005 to 2015, King ABDALLAH bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud incrementally modernized the Kingdom. Driven by personal ideology and political pragmatism, he introduced a series of social and economic initiatives, including expanding employment and social opportunities for women, attracting foreign investment, increasing the role of the private sector in the economy, and discouraging businesses from hiring foreign workers. These reforms have accelerated under King SALMAN bin Abd al-Aziz, who ascended to the throne in 2015, and has since lifted the Kingdom's ban on women driving, implemented education reforms, funded green initiatives, and allowed cinemas to operate for the first time in decades. Saudi Arabia saw some protests during the 2011 Arab Spring but not the level of bloodshed seen in protests elsewhere in the region. Shia Muslims in the Eastern Province protested primarily against the detention of political prisoners, endemic discrimination, and Bahraini and Saudi Government actions in Bahrain. Riyadh took a cautious but firm approach by arresting some protesters but releasing most of them quickly and by using its state-sponsored clerics to counter political and Islamist activism.
The government held its first-ever elections in 2005 and 2011, when Saudis went to the polls to elect municipal councilors. In December 2015, women were allowed to vote and stand as candidates for the first time in municipal council elections, with 19 women winning seats. After King SALMAN ascended to the throne in 2015, he placed the first next-generation prince, MUHAMMAD BIN NAYIF bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, in the line of succession as Crown Prince. He designated his son, MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, as the Deputy Crown Prince. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of 10 countries in a military campaign to restore the legitimate government of Yemen, which had been ousted by Houthi forces allied with former president ALI ABDULLAH al-Salih. The war in Yemen has drawn international criticism for civilian casualties and its effect on the country’s dire humanitarian situation. In December 2015, then Deputy Crown Prince MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN announced Saudi Arabia would lead a 34-nation Islamic Coalition to fight terrorism (it has since grown to 41 nations). In May 2017, Saudi Arabia inaugurated the Global Center for Combatting Extremist Ideology (also known as \"Etidal\") as part of its ongoing efforts to counter violent extremism. In June 2017, King SALMAN elevated MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN to Crown Prince. Since then, he has jockeyed for influence with neighboring countries in a bid to be the region’s main power broker.
The country remains a leading producer of oil and natural gas and holds about 17% of the world's proven oil reserves as of 2020. The government continues to pursue economic reform and diversification, particularly since Saudi Arabia's accession to the WTO in 2005, and promotes foreign investment in the Kingdom. In April 2016, the Saudi Government announced a broad set of socio-economic reforms, known as Vision 2030. Low global oil prices throughout 2015 and 2016 significantly lowered Saudi Arabia’s governmental revenue. In response, the government cut subsidies on water, electricity, and gasoline; reduced government employee compensation packages; and announced limited new land taxes. In coordination with OPEC and some key non-OPEC countries, Saudi Arabia agreed to cut oil output in early 2017 to regulate supply and help elevate global prices. In early 2020, this agreement by the so-called OPEC+ coalition collapsed. Saudi Arabia launched a price war by flooding the market with low-priced oil before returning to the negotiating table to agree to OPEC+’s largest and longest-lasting output cut. This cut helped to buoy prices that had collapsed as a result of the price war and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
" } }, "Geography": { "Location": { "text": "Middle East, bordering the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, north of Yemen" }, "Geographic coordinates": { "text": "25 00 N, 45 00 E" }, "Map references": { "text": "Middle East" }, "Area": { "total": { "text": "2,149,690 sq km" }, "land": { "text": "2,149,690 sq km" }, "water": { "text": "0 sq km" } }, "Area - comparative": { "text": "slightly more than one-fifth the size of the US" }, "Land boundaries": { "total": { "text": "4,272 km" }, "border countries": { "text": "Iraq 811 km; Jordan 731 km; Kuwait 221 km; Oman 658 km; Qatar 87 km; UAE 457 km; Yemen 1,307 km" } }, "Coastline": { "text": "2,640 km" }, "Maritime claims": { "territorial sea": { "text": "12 nm" }, "contiguous zone": { "text": "18 nm" }, "continental shelf": { "text": "not specified" } }, "Climate": { "text": "harsh, dry desert with great temperature extremes" }, "Terrain": { "text": "mostly sandy desert" }, "Elevation": { "highest point": { "text": "As Sarawat range, 3,000 m" }, "lowest point": { "text": "Persian Gulf 0 m" }, "mean elevation": { "text": "665 m" } }, "Natural resources": { "text": "petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold, copper" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "80.7% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 1.5% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 0.1% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 79.1% (2018 est.)" }, "forest": { "text": "0.5% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "18.8% (2018 est.)" } }, "Irrigated land": { "text": "11,910 sq km (2018)" }, "Major watersheds (area sq km)": { "text": "Indian Ocean drainage: (Persian Gulf) Tigris and Euphrates (918,044 sq km)" }, "Major aquifers": { "text": "Arabian Aquifer System" }, "Population distribution": { "text": "historically a population that was mostly nomadic or semi-nomadic, the Saudi population has become more settled since petroleum was discovered in the 1930s; most of the economic activities - and with it the country's population - is concentrated in a wide area across the middle of the peninsula, from Ad Dammam in the east, through Riyadh in the interior, to Mecca-Medina in the west near the Red Sea" }, "Natural hazards": { "text": "frequent sand and dust storms
volcanism: despite many volcanic formations, there has been little activity in the past few centuries; volcanoes include Harrat Rahat, Harrat Khaybar, Harrat Lunayyir, and Jabal Yar
" }, "Geography - note": { "text": "Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the world without a river; extensive coastlines on the Persian Gulf and Red Sea allow for considerable shipping (especially of crude oil) through the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal" } }, "People and Society": { "Population": { "text": "35,939,806 (2023 est.)", "note": "note: immigrants make up 38.3% of the total population, according to UN data (2019)" }, "Nationality": { "noun": { "text": "Saudi(s)" }, "adjective": { "text": "Saudi or Saudi Arabian" } }, "Ethnic groups": { "text": "Arab 90%, Afro-Asian 10%" }, "Languages": { "Languages": { "text": "Arabic (official)" }, "major-language sample(s)": { "text": "Saudi Arabia-Bahrain: none identified
Saudi Arabia-Iraq: Saudi Arabia has been building a fence along its border with Iraq to keep out militants and smugglers
Saudi Arabia-Jordan: Jordan and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to demarcate their maritime borders in 2007
Saudi Arabia-Kuwait: Kuwait and Saudi Arabia continue discussions on a maritime boundary with Iran; in December 2019, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait signed an agreement to demarcate land in a neutral zone and to restart oil production in shared fields, which had been suspended since 2014 because of disagreements
Saudi Arabia-Oman: none identified
Saudi Arabia-Qatar: none identified
Saudi Arabia-UAE: Saudi Arabia and UAE have disputed the Shaybah oilfield, which Saudi Arabia controls
Saudi Arabia-Yemen: the two countries signed the Treaty of Jeddah in 2000, which specified the coordinates of their land and maritime border and made provisions for grazing, the placement of armed forces, and future resource exploitation; in 2010, Saudi Arabia reinforced its concrete-filled security barrier along sections of the now fully demarcated border with Yemen to stem illegal crossborder activities
" }, "Refugees and internally displaced persons": { "stateless persons": { "text": "70,000 (2022); note - thousands of biduns (stateless Arabs) are descendants of nomadic tribes who were not officially registered when national borders were established, while others migrated to Saudi Arabia in search of jobs; some have temporary identification cards that must be renewed every five years, but their rights remain restricted; most Palestinians have only legal resident status; some naturalized Yemenis were made stateless after being stripped of their passports when Yemen backed Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait in 1990; Saudi women cannot pass their citizenship on to their children, so if they marry a non-national, their children risk statelessness" } }, "Illicit drugs": { "text": "regularly sentences drug traffickers to the death penalty, although a moratorium on executions for drug offences has been in place since at least 2020; improving anti-money-laundering legislation and enforcement" } } }