Saudi Arabia travel guide — Saudi Arabia tourism and travel information

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a country on the Arabian Peninsula. It borders Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, with the Persian Gulf to its north-east and the Red Sea to its west.

Saudi Arabia geography

The kingdom occupies eighty percent of the Arabian Peninsula. Most of the country's boundaries with the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen are undefined, so the exact size of the country remains unknown. The Saudi government estimate is 2,217,949 square kilometers. Other reputable estimates vary between 2,149,690 square kilometers and 2,240,000 square kilometers. Less than 1 percent of the total area is suitable for cultivation, and in the early 1990s population distribution varied greatly among the towns of the eastern and western coastal areas, the densely populated interior oases, and the vast, almost empty deserts.

The climate is harsh, dry desert with great extremes of temperature and the terrain is mostly uninhabited, sandy desert. Saudi Arabia is considered to be one of the fifteen countries that comprise the so-called "Cradle of Humanity."

In most parts of the country, vegetation is limited to weeds and shrubs. Wild animals like the Oryx Antelope have been exterminated by Saudi hunting companies using machine guns. The coastal area of the Red Sea, especially the coral reefs, have a rich marine fauna.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Saudi Arabia".