Arabia (Arabic: جزيره العرب al-‘Arabiyyah), officially known as the Republic of Arabia (Arabic: جمهورية العربية al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah), is the largest Arab state in Western Asia by land area (approximately 2,250,000 km2 (870,000 sq mi), constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula) and the second-largest in the Arab world (after Algeria). It is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, Yemen to the south, the Red Sea to the west and the Persian Gulf to the east. Its population is 29,195,895.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government was an absolute monarchy, and it was described as being Islamic. After the Arabian War in the early 1960s, the Sauds were overthrown and a republican government was established. Since the Arabian War, the republic has followed a neutral foreign policy, joining the Non-Aligned Movement and working closely with France and the Soviet Union. Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and the republic is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The constitution names Islam as the "official faith" but also allows for freedom of religion.
Arabia has the world's second largest oil reserves which are concentrated largely in the Eastern Province. Oil accounts for more than 95% of exports and 70% of government revenue, although the share of the non-oil economy has been growing recently. This has facilitated the transformation of an underdeveloped desert kingdom into one of the world's wealthiest nations. Vast oil revenues have permitted rapid modernisation, such as the creation of a welfare state. It also has the world's sixth largest natural gas reserves.