Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

I INTRODUCTION

Saudi Arabia, monarchy in southwestern Asia, occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is a land of vast deserts and little rainfall. Huge deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath the country's surface. Saudi Arabia was a relatively poor nation before the discovery and exploitation of oil, but since the 1950s income from oil has made the country wealthy. The religion of Islam developed in the 7th century in what is now Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, and it has been ruled by his descendants ever since.

Saudi Arabia is bounded on the north by Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait; on the east by the Persian Gulf and Qatar; on the southeast by the United Arab Emirates and Oman; on the south by Yemen; and on the west by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The country's border with the United Arab Emirates is not precisely defined. Saudi Arabia has an area of about 2,240,000 sq km (about 864,900 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Riyadh.

II LAND AND RESOURCES

The Arabian Peninsula is essentially a huge, tilted block of rock, highest in the west and sloping gradually down to the east. Most of this slab of rock is covered with the sand of several large deserts. Saudi Arabia's landscape also contains mountain ranges, flat coastal plains, and the rocky remains of hardened lava flows. The country's climate is hot and dry, and there are no permanent rivers or lakes.

A Natural Regions

Saudi Arabia can be divided into four natural regions. These are the mountainous western highlands; the rocky central plateau; the more fertile, eastern low-lying coastal plain; and the sandy desert areas of the north, east, and south.

A1 Highlands of Al Ḩijāz and 'Asīr

A string of mountain ranges stretches along the western edge of Saudi Arabia. The northern segment of these highlands, known as Al Ḩijāz (Hejaz), has a general elevation of 600 to 900 m (2,000 to 3,000 ft), with some mountains exceeding 2,000 m (6,500 ft). Rainfall here is infrequent, but streams flowing down the west side of the highlands allow limited agriculture in valleys and on the narrow coastal plain. On the eastern slopes of the highlands, prehistoric lava flows solidified to form vast, barren fields of dark-colored, broken basaltic stone known as harras. South of Al Ḩijāz the highlands continue into the region known as 'Asīr. Here, the highlands are rugged and reach considerably higher elevations than in Al Ḩijāz: Much of 'Asīr lies between 1,500 and 2,000 m (5,000 and 7,000 ft). The highest point in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Sawdā' (3,207 m/10,522 ft), is located in this region, near the border with Yemen. 'Asīr receives more rainfall than Al Ḩijāz, allowing more widespread farming.

A2 Najd

An arid, rocky plateau known as Najd occupies the interior of Saudi Arabia. The western half of the plateau is a desolate tableland of broken volcanic rock crossed by wadis (watercourses that flow only after rains). In the eastern half numerous rocky ridges run north to south. Bordered on its north, east, and south by desert areas, Najd itself also contains several deserts, including Nafūd ad Daḩy, a series of sandhills and ridges that divide western Najd from eastern Najd.

A3 Al Aḩsā'

In the east, along the Persian Gulf, is the low-lying region of Al Aḩsā', known for its vast petroleum deposits, farms, and gulf ports. Here, natural springs made agriculture and large-scale settlement possible long before the discovery of the region's rich oil reserves. The agricultural oasis of Al Qaţīf is noted for its large plantations of date palms. The coast consists of salt flats (called sabkhas), marshes, lagoons, and sandy or rocky beaches. Offshore coral reefs, mud islands, and sand bars made navigation difficult before channels to ports were dredged in the 20th century.

A4 Deserts

Considerably more than half the area of Saudi Arabia is desert. Some desert areas are covered with shifting sand dunes, while others are more stable flat or rippled expanses of sand. Shaped and moved by winds, sand dunes take the form of long ridges or tall hills. Sand, gravel, or bare rock basins lie between the dunes. Few plants grow in these arid deserts, except in scattered oases supported by springs or wells. Three large deserts lie on three sides of the country's central plateau: An Nafūd to the north, the Rub' al Khali to the south, and the narrow Ad Dahnā' connecting these two on the east. The Rub' al Khali, one of the largest deserts in the world, has an area of about 650,000 sq km (about 250,000 sq mi), nearly as large as the U.S. state of Texas.

An Nafūd is characterized by parallel sand ridges, most 6 to 15 m (20 to 50 ft) high, but some sand hills rise as high as 30 m (100 ft). In some areas, wind has stripped the bedrock surface clean of loose material. North of An Nafūd are the southern fringes of the Syrian Desert.

A belt of sand hills and ridges known as Ad Dahnā' extends in an arc south from An Nafūd, separating Najd and Al Aḩsā'. Ad Dahnā', varying in width from 24 to 80 km (15 to 50 mi), connects the northern desert regions with the Rub' al Khali in the south. A similar but discontinuous band of sand ridges lies on the western edge of Najd, also connecting An Nafūd and the Rub' al Khali.

Rub' al Khali means "Empty Quarter" in Arabic, reflecting the barren and forbidding nature of the southern Arabian desert. It is much larger and drier than the other Saudi deserts, contains no oases, and can only be inhabited temporarily, in the cooler winter months, by camel-herding nomads called Bedouins. The Rub' al Khali extends over much of southeastern Saudi Arabia and beyond the southern frontier into Yemen and Oman. Like An Nafūd, the Rub' al Khali is a sea of sand ridges and hills, some of which are as high as 150 m (500 ft). One of the world's best-preserved meteor impact sites is located in the middle of the Rub' al Khali, at a site called Wabar.

B