The Arabian Peninsula, Arabia, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitical role because of its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

The seas off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula are, on the west the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, on the southeast the Arabian Sea (part of the Indian Ocean), and on the northeast, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf. The peninsula and the Syrian Desert have no clear line of demarcation, but the commonly accepted boundary is the northern border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges which receive greater rainfall than the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.

The peninsula's constituent countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The northern part of the peninsula is the Syrian Desert, which also includes northeastern Jordan, southeastern Syria, and western Iraq. Some usage includes the entire subcontinent of Arabia.

Six countries of the list above, excluding Yemen, form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), mainly known as the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the peninsula live in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. The peninsula contains the world's largest reserves of oil. It is home to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, both of which are in Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the famous Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, was claimed as an Iraqi province and invaded by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. It is also an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Population

As of 2008, the estimated population of the Arabian Peninsula is 77,983,936.[7] In the Persian Gulf states there are many residents who are non-nationals: in Saudi Arabia it is 20% and in the United Arab Emirates it is 89%.

Landscape

Geologically, this region is perhaps more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it lies on a tectonic plate of its own, the Arabian Plate, which has been moving incrementally away from northeast Africa (forming the Red Sea) and north into the Eurasian plate (forming the Zagros mountains). The rocks exposed vary systematically across Arabia, with the oldest rocks exposed in the Arabian-Nubian Shield near the Red Sea, overlain by earlier sediments that become younger towards the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the best-preserved ophiolite on Earth, the Semail ophiolite, lies exposed in the mountains of the UAE and northern Oman.

The peninsula consists of:

1. a central plateau, the Nejd, with fertile valleys and pastures used for the grazing of sheep and other livestock.

2. a range of deserts: the Nefud in the north, which is stony; the Rub' Al-Khali or Great Arabian Desert in the south, with sand estimated to extend 600 ft. below the surface; between them, the Dahna.

3. stretches of dry or marshy coastland with coral reefs on the Red Sea side (Tihamah).

4. ranges of mountains, paralleling the Red Sea coast on the west (e.g., Asir province) but also at the southeastern end of the peninsula (Oman). The mountains show a steady increase in altitude as they get nearer to Yemen, and the highest peaks and ranges are all located in Yemen. The highest, Jabal Al-Nabi Shu'ayb in Yemen, is 3666 m high.

Arabia has few lakes or permanent rivers. Most are drained by ephemeral watercourses called wadis, which are dry except during the rainy season. Plentiful ancient aquifers exist beneath much of the peninsula, however, and where this water surfaces, oases form (e.g., Al-Hasa and Qatif, two of the worlds largest oases) and permit agriculture, especially palm trees, which allowed the peninsula to produce more dates than any other region in the world. In general, the climate is extremely hot and arid, although there are exceptions. Higher elevations are made temperate by their altitude, and the Arabian Sea coastline can receive surprisingly cool, humid breezes in summer due to cold upwelling offshore. The peninsula has no thick forests, although desert-adapted wildlife is present throughout the region.

A plateau more than 2,500 feet high extends across much of the Arabian Peninsula. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. The interior is characterised by cuestas and valleys, drained by a system of wadis. A crescent of sand and gravel deserts lies to the east.

Land and sea

Most of the Arabian Peninsula is unsuited to settled agriculture, making irrigation and land reclamation projects essential. The narrow coastal plain and isolated oases, amounting to less than 1% of the land area, are used to cultivate grains, coffee and exotic fruits. Goats, sheep, and camels are widespread throughout the region.

The fertile soils of Yemen have encouraged settlement of almost all of the land from sea level up to the mountains at 10,000 feet. In the higher reaches elaborate terraces have been constructed to facilitate crop cultivation.

credited to wikipedia and flickr: twiga_swala