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The Shaybah oilfield is one of many in Saudi Arabia. Beneath the sands of this desert country lies about one-quarter of the world’s oil reserves. This energy resource has made Saudi Arabia one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

Place in the World

T he modern state of Saudi Arabia was established in 1932, but people have been living in the lands of the present Saudi kingdom for thousands of years. The nation we know today as Saudi Arabia was once a wide-ranging region of small territories ruled by different families. Those families lived in small settlements mostly near the coast, or traveled from place to place in the desert atop camels. At differ- ent times the tribes went to war against or formed alliances with their neighbors. But the ever-shifting relations between these fam- ilies remained within the boundaries of the Arabian Peninsula, a distinct landform that sits between Africa and the Arab nations of Southwest Asia. Even as recently as the colonial period, those unfamiliar with the Arabian Peninsula—which before 1932 was known as Arabia—viewed it as an exotic land, filled with mystery. For foreigners, the deserts of Arabia, so remote and forbidding, seemed to shut off access not only to the land, but also to the very people who lived there.

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