Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbiə/, ⁱ/ˌsaʊ-/), officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia 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 to the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid inhospitable desert or barren landforms.

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The country has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading largely financed by the oil and gas trade. 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. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners.

Khobar

Al Khobar (also spelled Khobar or al-Khubar; Arabic: الخبر‎) is a large city located in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the coast of the Persian Gulf. It is one of the largest cities in the Gulf Cooperation Council, with a population of 941,358 as of 2012. Al Khobar is a part of the Dammam metropolitan area along with Dammam and Dhahran, which together forms part as the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Saudi Arabia having an estimated combined population of over 4,100,000 as of 2012. Greater Dammam also includes many other smaller cities such as: Al Qatif, Safwa, and Ras Tanura which form an overall population of 5,212,000 as of 2012. All three urban centers are served by the King Fahd International Airport which is the largest airport in the world. The distance to the airport terminal from Khobar is about 50 km (31 mi). Together, Al Khobar, Dhahran and Dammam are often known as "The Triplet Cities" by many natives and locals. Since Dammam, Dhahran and Al Khobar are less than 15 km (9.3 mi) away from each other, they essentially form one metropolitan area, the fifth largest in the kingdom and sixth in the Gulf Cooperation Council referred to the GCC, or "Al-Khaleej/Gulf" by many GCC citizens.

Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia (Arabic: الجزيرة العربية‎ al-jazīra al-ʿarabiyya, « Arabian island ») is a peninsula of Western Asia situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia.

It is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km² (1,250,000 sq mi). The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as parts of southern Iraq and Jordan. The peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, the Levant to the north and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. The Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

Before the modern era, it was divided into four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia and Eastern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia. Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman (Dhofar). Eastern Arabia consists of the entire coastal strip of the Arab side of the Persian Gulf (the Khaleej).