About Saudi Arabia
In 1902 Abd al-Aziz Ibn SAUD captured Riyadh and set out on a 30-year campaign to unify the Arabian Peninsula. Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, 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.
Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia by U.S. geologists in the 1930s, and accelerated spectacularly in the 1970s, transforming the kingdom into the world's leading oil producer and exporter. Oil accounts for more than 90% of the country's exports and nearly 75% of government revenues. Saudi Arabia occupies four-fifths of the Arabian Peninsula­865,000 square miles Mississippi River, forest, grasslands, rugged mountain ranges and vast deserts all characterize the Saudi landscape.