Facts about Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy with strong government controls.

Oil has provided Saudi Arabia with economic prosperity and a great deal of leverage in the international community.

Saudi Arabia acceded to the World Trade Organization in December 2005 after many years of negotiations.

King Fahd allowed American and coalition soldiers to be stationed in Saudi Arabia to counter the Iraqi threat.

Saudi Arabia accepted the Kuwaiti royal family and 400,000 refugees while allowing Western and Arab troops to deploy on its soil for the liberation of Kuwait the following year.

Saudi Arabia has no permanent year-round rivers or lakes.

The politics of Saudi Arabia take place in a framework of an absolute monarchy whereby the king of Saudi Arabia is not only head of state, but also the head of government.

In 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture criticized Saudi Arabia over the amputations and floggings it carries out.

By 2007, Saudi Arabia's public educational system comprised 20 universities, more than 24,000 schools, and a large number of colleges and other educational and training institutions.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has faced nearly two decades of heavy budget and trade deficits, the expensive 1990-1991 war with Iraq, and total public debt of around $175 billion.

Islamic dietary laws forbid the eating of pork and the drinking of alcoholic beverages, and this law is enforced strictly throughout Saudi Arabia.

The rate for all offenses combined was 157.12 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4123.97 for the U.S.

Saudi Arabia does not have much of a formal criminal code, and thus much of its law is derived from its ultra-conservative Wahhabism.

Saudi Arabia supported neutral shipping in the Gulf during periods of the Iran-Iraq war and aided Iraq's war-strained economy.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: ??????? ??????? ????????, al-Mamlaka al-?Arabiyya as-Sa??diyya) is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi Arabian dress follows strictly the principles of hijab (the Islamic principle of modesty, especially in dress).

Hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers and skilled workers from regions of the developing world migrate to Saudi Arabia, sometimes only for a short period of time, to work.

By expanding the military forces years later, Saudi Arabia today has many military branches.

A member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Saudi Arabia had joined other member countries in moderate oil price increases beginning in 1971.

When civil war broke out in 1962 between Yemeni royalists and republicans, Egyptian forces entered Yemen to support the new republican government, while Saudi Arabia backed the royalists.

Saudi Arabia has never been a colony of a foreign power or a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Arabic is the language of all Saudi Arabian citizens and about half the immigrants.

The Saudi Arabia national football team has competed four times in the FIFA World Cup and six times in the AFC Asian Cup, which the team won three times and was runner-up twice.

After the 1973 war, the price of oil rose substantially, dramatically increasing Saudi Arabia's wealth and political influence.

At the time the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, education was not accessible to everyone and limited to individualized instruction at religious schools in mosques in urban areas.

Hejaz is the most populated region in Saudi Arabia.

The combination of relatively high oil prices and exports led to a revenue windfall for Saudi Arabia during 2004 and early 2005.

The Movement for Islamic Reform is a United Kingdom-based Saudi opposition organization headed by Dr. Sa'ad Al-Faqih, who has been a key figure in the reform movement in Saudi Arabia since the gulf war.

Saudi Arabia has 14 provinces, each governed by an emir, usually from the royal family, who reports to the minister of the interior.

The crime rate in Saudi Arabia is low compared to more industrialized countries.

Formal primary education began in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s.

The cultural environment in Saudi Arabia is highly conservative.

One of Saudi Arabia's most compelling folk rituals is the Al Ardha, the country's national dance.

Plants can still survive in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the south-east mountains and lowlands.

Saudi Arabia's extensive foreign assets (around $110-billion) provide a substantial fiscal "cushion."

In 2004, Saudi Arabia earned around $4564 per person, versus $22,589 in 1980.

Over the past 15 years, Saudi Arabia's claimed reserves have been flat, with the exception of an increase of about 100 billion barrels between 1987 and 1988.

Extreme heat and aridity are characteristic of most of Saudi Arabia.

In 1965, there was an exchange of territories between Saudi Arabia and Jordan in which Jordan gave up a relatively large area of inland desert in return for a small piece of sea-shore near Aqaba.

In 1932, these regions were unified as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Many experts believe that Saudi Arabia is exaggerating its reserves and may soon show production declines.

During the Gulf War, Iraq fired Scud missiles into Saudi Arabia and penetrated its northern border.

Iraqi troops began massing on the border of Kuwait and some feared that they were about to invade Saudi Arabia.

The cinema of Saudi Arabia' is small, there being only two feature films from the country and a documentary, all released around 2006.

Some Saudi novelists have had their books published in Lebanon because of censorship in Saudi Arabia.

Keif al-Hal?, billed as Saudi Arabia's first film, was actually shot in the United Arab Emirates and the lead woman was Jordanian.

Referred to as “Saudi Arabia” by many English-speaking expatriates, citizens use the Arabic short form of as-Sa??diyya (????????), but often just refer to the nation as al-Mamlaka (the Kingdom).

The nation of Saudi Arabia evolved from tribal origins, with financial assistance from merchants, knowledge imparted by imams and teachers, and bureaucratic work done by jurists and bureaucrats.

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Saudi Arabia participated in the Arab oil boycott of the United States and the Netherlands.

Saudi Arabia has the super-rich, the very rich, and the rich along with a large middle-income group and some with limited incomes.

Saudi Arabia has participated in the Summer Olympic Games and in international competitions in volleyball and other sports.