The history of Saudi Arabia in its current form as a state began with its foundation in 1744, although the history of the region extends as far as 20,000 years ago. The region has had a global impact twice in world history. In the 7th century it became the cradle of Islam and the capital of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate. From the mid-20th century the discovery of vast oil deposits propelled it into a key economic and geo-political role.
The Arabian Peninsula is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. At 3,237,500 km2 (1,250,000 sq mi), the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, originally known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, is a regional intergovernmental political and economic union consisting of all Arab states of the Persian Gulf - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates - except Iraq. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is the second-largest Arab sovereign state in the peninsula, occupying 527,970 square kilometres. The coastline stretches for about 2,000 kilometres. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel to the south, and Oman to the east. Yemen's territory encompasses more than 200 islands, including the Socotra islands in the Guardafui Channel. Yemen is characterized as a failed state with high necessity of transformation. Yemen's constitutionally stated capital is the city of Sanaa, but the city has been under Houthi rebel control since February 2015 as well as Aden, which is also controlled by the Southern Transitional Council since 2018. Its executive administration resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Western Asia—or simply West Asia—is the westernmost subregion of Asia. It includes Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Levant region, the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, and Transcaucasia (partly). The region is considered to be separated from Africa by the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, and separated from Europe by the waterways of the Turkish Straits and the watershed of the Greater Caucasus. Central Asia lies to its northeast, while South Asia lies to its east. Eight seas surround the region (clockwise): the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.
The ʿAsir Region is a region of Saudi Arabia located in the southwest of the country that is named after the ʿAsīr tribe. It has an area of 76,693 square kilometres (29,611 sq mi) and an estimated population of 2,211,875 (2017). It shares a short border with the Saada Governorate of Yemen.
The Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, also known as the Kingdom of Yemen or, retrospectively, as North Yemen, was a state that existed between 1918 and 1962 in the northern part of what is now Yemen. Its capital was Sana'a until 1948, then Taiz. From 1962 to 1970, it maintained control over portions of Yemen until its final defeat in the North Yemen Civil War. Yemen was admitted to the United Nations on 30 September 1947.
The North Yemen Civil War was fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970 between partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic. The war began with a coup d'état carried out in 1962 by revolutionary republicans led by the army under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal, who dethroned the newly crowned Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border where he rallied popular support from northern Shia tribes to retake power, escalating rapidly to a full-scale civil war.
Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Arabian Peninsula prior to the emergence of Islam in 610 CE.
Papilio saharae, the Sahara swallowtail, is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae. It is found in North Africa and Arabia.
Spialia doris, the Aden skipper or desert grizzled skipper, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Somalia and India. In the Atlas mountains it is found at heights of 400 to 1,750 meters above sea-level.
The Arab Cold War was a period of political rivalry in the Arab world that occurred as part of the broader Cold War between, approximately, the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 that brought President Gamal Abdel Nasser to power in that country, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution which led Arab-Iranian tensions to eclipse intra-Arab strife. On one side were newly-established republics, led by Nasser's Egypt, and on the other side were traditionalist kingdoms led by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.
Myrina silenus, the common fig-tree blue, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa, southern Arabia and northern Oman.
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called al-Islah, is a Yemeni Islamist party founded in 1990 by Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, Mohammed al-Yadumi and Yahya Rassam. The first article of Islah basic law defines it as "a popular political organization that seeks reform of all aspects of life on the basis of Islamic principles and teachings".
Colotis daira, the black-marked orange tip, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found in the Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Kenya and Tanzania. The habitat consists of dry savanna.
Deudorix livia, the pomegranate playboy, is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found in Senegal, the Gambia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Algeria, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece. The habitat consists of savanna, including arid savanna.
The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen is an intervention launched by Saudi Arabia on 26 March 2015, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, in response to calls from the pro-Saudi president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after he was ousted by the Houthi movement due to economic and political grievances, and fled to Saudi Arabia.
The wildlife of Saudi Arabia is substantial and varied. Saudi Arabia is a very large country forming the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. It has several geographic regions, each with a diversity of plants and animals adapted to their own particular habitats. As well as small hills and deserts, there is a coastal plain and long coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the west and a rather shorter coastline on the Persian Gulf to the east.
