Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example

It stands as a significant industrial country, claiming over 25% of the global oil reserve. It is this wealth in oil that Saudi Arabia is known for and is what drives the country’s economy. Considered as the origin of Islam, the country has been keen to preserve its historical richness with the passage of time. Geography Saudi Arabia occupies about 80% of the Arabian Peninsula, measuring 865,000 square miles, just about 25% of the total surface are of the US. This is a big country as compared to the size of other countries globally.

The country borders the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the Persian Gulf to the east, Oman and Yemen to the south and Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan to the north. On the west, the Red Sea separates it from Sudan, Eritrea and Egypt. Its entire geography indicates a plateau that rises from the Red Sea and slopes down gradually to the Persian Gulf. Even though its mountains rise as high as 9,000 feet, Saudi Arabia has no permanent rivers, lakes and big forests, making Janin and Besheer (7) refer to it as the driest large country.

Thus, the country is largely a desert meaning that green vegetation is rare apart from those regions near oases. Saudi Arabia hosts the world’s greatest continuous sand expanse in its southeastern corner named the Empty Quarter. It covers about 264,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of Texas State (Zuhur 21). With this, Saudi Arabia is characterized by the desert geography including sand dunes and shrubs. Farming would be a rare activity unless under irrigated land. The climate varies greatly on different parts of the country, ranging from dry and hot summers in the northern and central regions to winters with moderate temperatures during the day and cold, at times freezing, at night.

This variation in day and night temperatures could be articulated to the lack of clouds that allow the sunrays to heat the earth and the heat quickly disappears at night with no clouds to offer insulation. This weather could be harsh for persons seeking to live in the country. The summers in the gravel or sand deserts could be as hot as 49oC with these areas rarely experiencing any rains. The rainfall is uneven and unreliable averaging less than 10 cm per year (Zuhur 45). This makes it hard to farm with reliance on rainfall, meaning that the country cannot supply itself with sufficient food.

Socio-economic Life Saudi Arabia has a population of about 29.6 million people with Arabic as the national language. For an American visitor, a translator would therefore be important because most of the communication will be in Arabic. Among the important religious holidays is Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking fast marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Zuhur 23). Others include Eid al-Aidha and Hajj. Mosques serve as places of worship and are thus scared places. With Islam being a common religion in the country, a majority of the women would thus be in their long loose-fitting dresses while men would be in their traditional garbs.

Interestingly, men are considered the guardians of women according to the law and therefore take responsibility for their behavior. This makes women inferior as opposed to many modern states where gender equality has caused men and women to be regarded as equals. Additionally, marriage is not organized by one family but by both families. These marriages rarely involve people from different families because Zuhur (155) observes that first cousin marriages are common.