Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia covers most of the Arabian Peninsula, rising steeply from the Red Sea and sloping gently down to the Gulf. In the south-west the Asir mountains catch enough rain for terraced farms and juniper woods. The centre is the Najd plateau, ringed by sand seas: the Nafud in the north, the narrow Dahna, and the Rub’ al Khali in the south. There are no permanent rivers, so farming depends on wadis, on great oases such as Al-Ahsa and on deep fossil groundwater.

The Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570, and from Medina Islam spread across the peninsula and far beyond; the two cities are the holiest in Islam, and the Hajj draws pilgrims from across the Muslim world every year. The Al Saud founded their first state in central Arabia in the eighteenth century, allied with the reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Abdulaziz ibn Saud proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and oil was struck at Dammam in 1938.

Hospitality is a point of honour rooted in Bedouin life: cardamom-spiced coffee and dates open almost every visit, and the ardah, a sword dance performed to drums and chanted poetry, marks national celebrations. Oil defines the economy. The giant fields of the Eastern Province feed refineries around the world, and the industrial cities of Jubail and Yanbu turn crude into plastics, fertilisers and fuel. Pilgrimage supports a large religious tourism trade in Mecca and Medina.