Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia is a monarchy (they have a king, and royal family) ruled by the Al Saud family. The king leads the nation in both spiritual and political affairs. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz also serves as the Prime Minister.
Population 26,292,000
The capital and largest city is Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia, a middle eastern country, is made up of mostly desert lands.
In the 1930's oil (petroleum) was discovered, and changed the country from a poor rural farming and herding nation to a wealthy economic power with modern urban cities.
Saudi Arabia is the world's leading petroleum supplier.
The country borders the following lands and waters: The Red Sea, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf (Arabia Sea), the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Qatar.
All Saudi citizens are Muslims, which means they follow the religion of Islam and the ways and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Muslims believe that there is one God (Allah) and that Muhammad was his messenger.
Almost all Saudis are of the Sunni branch of Islam. The other 10% are of the Shi'a branch.
Saudi Arabia has two holy cities Mecca and Medina. Mecca is the place were the Prophet Muhammad was born. It is the city that millions of Muslims from every corner of the world try to visit at lest once in their lives. Medina is where the Arab man Muhammad started the Islamic teachings in the A.D. 600s.
Because of these two holy cities, Saudi Arabia is seem as a special place by Muslims from other nations.
In 1991 the United States joined Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in the Persian Gulf War to free the nation of Kuwait from the invasion of Iraq in 1990. Since the small nation of Kuwait (pop. 2, 096,000, then) borders Saudi Arabia they feared this military attack was aimed at the country's oil fields, so Saudi Arabia took action. The short war (only 40 some days) was a success, Iraq was stopped, but the whole incident stirred up Anti-American feelings because of Christian and/or Western military power and influence being brought into what was considered Muslim holy grounds.

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