The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir).[11] The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines.[12][13] The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading largely financed by the oil and gas trade.[12][13] Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. Petroleum was discovered in 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Shia-majority Eastern Province.[17] Saudi Arabia has since become the world's largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves, and the sixth largest gas reserves.[18] The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index,[19] and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies.[20][21] However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, lacking any significant service or production sector (apart from the extraction of resources).[22] A monarchical autocracy,[23][24] Saudi Arabia has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world,[25][26] and in 2010–14, SIPRI found that Saudi Arabia was the world's second largest arms importer.[27] Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power.[28] In addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC.
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