A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF SAUDI ARABIA

The Arabian Peninsula is the homeland of Arabs. Arabs are descendants of the Semitic tribes, which still maintain tribal affiliations today. Arabia was the cradle of Islam. Islam started with the revelation of the Holy Koran in Meccah in AD 610. In 622, the prophet Mohammad migrated to Al-Madinah and established the first Islamic state.

The contemporary history of the actual Saudi Arabia kingdom is traced back to 1744. In that year Al-Shaikh Mohammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab met prince Mohammad Bin Sa'ud in Al-Daraiya. The two agreed to call for Al-Tawheid (oneness of Allah/God) in establishing religion as a way of life. 1902 marked the history of the new Arabia. In 1904 King Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa'ud had recovered all the territory in Al-Najd, the central part of the country. In 1927 the British, who had established Arabia as a protectorate in 1915, acknowledged the independence of the two kingdoms of Al-Hijaz in the Western region under Al-Sharif Al-Hussein, and Al-Najd in the central region under Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa'ud. In 1932, these two kingdoms were unified and named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Abdul Aziz. The population of Saudi Arabia is about 21,009,900 (including about seven million foreigners). Seventy-seven percent of the population is urban and 23 percent is rural. Riyadh is the capital, with 4,300,000 inhabitants.

ECOLOGICAL FEATURES

Saudi Arabia consists mainly of deserts in the north and south and its surface is 2,149,690 km2.