Saudi Arabia

American  

noun

1. a kingdom in N and central Arabia, including Hejaz, Nejd, and dependencies. About 600,000 sq. mi. (1,554,000 sq. km). Riyadh.

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Saudi Arabia British  

/ ˈsaʊ-, ˈsɔːdɪ /

noun

1. a kingdom in SW Asia, occupying most of the Arabian peninsula between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea: founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud, who united Hejaz and Nejd; consists mostly of desert plateau; large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Official language: Arabic. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: riyal. Capital: Riyadh (royal and administrative), Jiddah (diplomatic). Pop: 26 939 583 (2013 est). Area: 2 260 353 sq km (872 722 sq miles)

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Saudi Arabia Cultural  

1. Monarchy occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula, where it is bordered by Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the east and south; Yemen to the south; and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west. Its capital and largest city is Riyadh.

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Discover More

Saudi Arabia sits on at least one-fourth of the world's known oil reserves, a geological gift that makes this otherwise resource-poor, desert nation very rich and important to the industrial nations of the world.

Saudi Arabia is the location of Mecca (see also Mecca) and Medina, the two most holy places in the world for Muslims, pilgrimage sites equivalent to the Catholic Rome and the Christian and Jewish Jerusalem (see also Jerusalem).

Saudi Arabia became the major staging ground for United Nations forces seeking to expel Iraq from Kuwait in 1990–1991. (See Persian Gulf War.)

Overwhelmingly Muslim, the country is ruled by a royal family according to conservative Muslim law.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Saudi Arabia

From a military perspective, tensions have been raised another notch by the deal announced on Wednesday, paving the way for US firms to help Saudi Arabia develop its own domestic civil nuclear power programme.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

“This has been an alternative route through which Saudi Arabia has exported oil since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” they add.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

Saudi Arabia had diverted its oil exports to its Red Sea ports and out the Bab al Mandeb, dispatching some 4.5 million barrels via that route per day.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

On Wednesday, the secretary of energy signed an agreement by which the United States would supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear energy technology.

From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2026

Throughout the morning Zeitoun’s sisters and brothers called from Lattakia, from Saudi Arabia.

From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers