Saudi Arabia officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA),[c] is the largest Arab state in Western Asia by land area (approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula) and the second-largest in the Arab world (after Algeria). It is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen in the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast. Its population is estimated to consist of 16 million citizens and an additional nine million registered foreign expatriates and two million illegal immigrants.[11]
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdulaziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as Al Saud. [12] 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.
With the world's second largest oil reserves and the world's sixth largest natural gas reserves, the Kingdom is categorized as a high income economy with 19th highest GDP in the world[13][14] Being the world's largest oil exporter is the basis for its position as one of the 20 most powerful countries in the world, it also ranked as a regional power and maintains regional hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula. It is a member of Gulf Cooperation Council, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, G-20 major economies and OPEC.[15]
Its economy is largely backed by its oil industry, which accounts for
more than 95% of exports and 70% of government revenue, although the
share of the non-oil economy has been growing recently. This has
facilitated the transformation of the underdeveloped desert kingdom into
one of the world's wealthiest nations, such as the creation of a welfare state.[16]
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