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arabian gulf neighbours that being said the eiu do state that kuwait has a more open polity than most of its fellow gcc states and ranks the highest among them as a result read more on kuwait oman the sultanate of oman is on the southeastern coast of the arabian peninsula it shares land borders with saudi arabia the united arab emirates and yemen the coast faces the arabian sea on the southeast and the gulf of oman on the northeast it has a number of smallish exclaves within the united arab emirate s land borders the capital and largest city is muscat map of oman s total population of 5 2 million just over half are omani citizens 2 9 million 57 per cent oman s overall score in eiu s 2023 democracy index was 3 12 out of ten in 2023 ranking it 119 th out of 167 economies oman s score remains around the median for gcc countries below qatar s and kuwait s but above those of the uae bahrain and saudi arabia the eiu classify it as remains classified as an authoritarian read more on oman qatar qatar is a peninsula on the northeastern coast of the arabian peninsula it shares its sole land border with saudi arabia to the south the capital is doha home to over 80 per cent of the country s inhabitants qatar has one of the highest levels of gdp per head in the world and the highest in the gcc map the population of qatar was 2 8 million in early 2025 although only 348 000 of these individuals are qatari analysts note that qataris are provided with a wide range of social welfare benefits by the government including free healthcare education and subsidised housing and suggest that because if this qataris nationals seem on the whole to be content despite having little influence over politics due to the generosity of the ruling elites social welfare benefits in this small country are incredibly generous by any metric read more on qatar saudi arabia the kingdom of saudi arabia covers the bulk of the arabian peninsula and has a land area of about 830 000 sq miles making it the largest country in the middle east it is bordered by the red sea to the west jordan iraq and kuwait to the north the arabian or persian gulf bahrain qatar and the united arab emirates to the east oman to the southeast and yemen to the south map with a population of almost 32 2 million as of 2025 saudi arabia is the fourth most populous country in the arab world yet there are actually only 18 8 million saudis amongst this number according to the eiu 2024 saudi arabia is ranked 150 th out of 167 countries and territories on its democracy index and is thus categorised as an authoritarian state by the london based think tank read more on saudi arabia the united arab emirates the united arab emirates the uae or simply the emirates is at the eastern end of the arabian peninsula it is a federal elective monarchy made up of seven emirates with abu dhabi serving as its capital the seven emirates are abu dhabi dubai sharjah ajman umm al quwain ras al khaimah and fujairah the uae shares land borders with oman to the east and northeast and with saudi arabia to the southwest as well as maritime borders in the persian gulf with qatar and iran and with oman in the gulf of oman map as of 2025 the uae had an estimated population of 12 2 million of which just one million were emiratis thus less than one in ten individuals in the uae have claims to the country s sovereign wealth according to the eiu 2024 strong international oil prices have enabled the government of the uae to continue to invest heavily in improving infrastructure and maintaining targeted social support housing and employment assistance and other benefits in general a high level of income per head and redistribution of funds between abu dhabi and less wealthy emirates in the uae mean that there are fewer social strains or demands for democratisation than in poorer countries with comparable authoritarian political systems in the eiu s annual democracy index the uae was placed firmly in the authoritarian category ranked 125 th out of 167 countries and territories read more on the uae endnotes 1 back the arabian gulf and persian gulf refer to the same body of water located between the arabian peninsula and iran but the term persian gulf is considered the historically recognised name regarding the politics of names british readers may prefer the yemen and american readers may be more familiar with the term persian gulf for they ve the gulf of mexico indeed the persian gulf is the name some will insist upon using no judgement is here made by the continued use of arabian gulf when referring to the said six countries and to assuage any that may take umbrage i recommend you allow your mind s eye to read persian gulf each time you see arabian gulf not that this will necessarily suffice as consolation but i myself do the same each time for instance i see in print mankind i voice it in my head as humankind the issue with naming the gulf is commonly covered in the outset of books that focus on the region in the gulf states a modern history david commins writes that naming the body of water between iran and arabia is rooted in convention rather than nature it does happen to be the case that ancient greek mariners early muslim cartographers and 15 th century portuguese explorers all referred to it as the persian gulf and only in the 1950s with the rise of arab nationalism did the term arabian gulf take root and gain some popular currency my rationale is twofold first the word arabian comes most naturally to me arabic is the language i studied as an undergraduate in both london and alexandria secondly the native tongue in all six gcc countries the geographic area of my academic research interest is arabic in all instances be it in manama muscat abu dhabi or dubai it was always referred to in meetings and at conferences that i attended as al khaleej al arabi the arabian gulf countries are often lumped together and painted as archetypal rentier states that are resource rich and labour poor the contention that oil is a curse for the economies that were not diversified prior to its commercial extraction is at first pass an immutable truism but one that on second pass is only valid accept for when it is not see e g conca 2013 rosser 2006 it would be fair to say that the jury is still out but as was argued in a 2017 paper entitled oil rent the rentier state resource curse narrative and the gcc countries oil rent has massively benefitted the citizenries of the arabian gulf in social welfare terms a number of additional factors should also be considered in this regard not least the ways in which imperial powers have long interfered first of all the oil rich arabian gulf are too dissimilar from say russia or venezuela to be bundled together and conveniently be cast as petrostates i e they do not satisfactorily comply with thomas friedman s 2006 first law of petro politics secondly neither can these economies be placed in the same basket as their fellow oil rich middle eastern states algeria population c 44 million iran pop 83mn and iraq pop 41mn as the arabian gulf six are all absolute monarchies not republics and have a total national population of just 25 million when expatriate migrant workers are factored out for a primer on algeria consider the section on this north african country s civil war in robert fisk s the great war for civilisation the conquest of the middle east 2005 fisk recall is the author of pity the nation lebanon at war 1992 and was a prominent journalist covering the iraq war who notably coined the appellation lord blair of kut al amara for readers on iran consider the works of axworthy 2007 empire of the mind a history of iran and amanat 2017 iran a modern history for what is still referred to as modern day mesopotamia by some think the epic of gilgamesh consider republic of fear the politics of modern iraq by makiya 1998 and once upon a time in iraq by bluemel and mansour 2020 a third point is iraq s brief 1990 foray into kuwait aside the gcc s abundance of oil has not caused it to suffer internal armed conflict as has occurred in some fellow opec countries like angola nigeria and libya there is an argument to be made that iraq was goaded into invading kuwait and believed it had been issued something akin to a get out of jail free card by the americans gause 2002 sciolino gordon 1990 stein 1992 fourth and finally neither can it be said that this bloc s abundance of oil has caused it to suffer internal armed conflict as has occurred in some fellow opec countries like angola nigeria and libya the semi autobiographical novel in the country of men by hisham matar 2006 and sandstorm libya in the time of revolution 2012 by lindsey hilsum together comprise a good introduction to libya it should be noted that in signs of these contemporary times several arabian gulf countries entwined themselves in libya s discordant affairs in the years after the arab spring on another matter in terms of the countries of the arabian peninsula the yemen is the seventh it is not part of the gcc grouping and thus is often omitted from comparative analyses of the peninsula s sociocultural and political economy trajectories with regard to yemen the following works are highly recommended and without favour presented chronologically freya stark s the southern gates of arabia a journey in the hadbramaut 1936 yemen by tim mackintosh smith 2000 steven caton s yemen chronicle an anthropology of war and mediation 2005 and yemen dancing on the heads of snakes by victoria clark 2010 saudi arabia and the uae s overt military action in yemen began in 2015 according to ragab 2017 these countries felt obliged to reposition themselves in the region as countries capable of using not only money and diplomacy but also military means in the perusal of their foreign policy objectives in relation to maintain their respective domestic stabilities 2 back the map below gives details on the confessional divides on and around the arabian peninsula although the data used to compile the map is over a decade old no similar more contemporary map exists to my knowledge the work is based on that carried out by dr michael izady and later used by the financial times of london interestingly it draws a distinction between sunni islam and the schools most popular in saudi arabia wahhabi salafi to gain a deeper understanding of the region s sectarian politics the following are worth investigating axworthy 2017 and potter 2014 the work by matthiesen 2013 sectarian gulf bahrain saudi arabia and the arab spring that wasn t provides a thorough analysis of the relationship between bahrain with its sunni monarchy reigning over a domestic population that is majority shia and saudi arabia it is worth too paying particular heed to the sentiments of haddad 2014 p 67 when it comes to the term sectarian until scholars are able to satisfactorily define sectarianism a more coherent way of addressing the issue would be to use the term sectarian followed by the appropriate suffix e g sectarian unity sectarian discrimination and so forth includes gnostic alawites alevis dated see table below expand map table religions in 2023 country sunni shia other bahrain a 28 54 18 kuwait b 66 17 17 oman c 47 7 46 qatar d 66 12 22 saudi arabia e 81 9 10 the uae f 67 7 26 iran 17 81 1 iraq 35 61 4 jordan 93 2 5 egypt 90 10 yemen 44 55 1 as will become apparent when reading the notes to the above table the association of religion data archives arda relies heavily on the u s state department s annual international religious freedom reports that are submitted to the house of congress annually in accordance with the international religious freedom act of 1998 those said reports linked to in the table s notes below paint a common theme virtually all gulf citizens are muslim but official demographics published by these countries do not delineate along confessional lines so local media and think tank reporting is relied upon a the us state department s 2023 irf report on bahrain estimates the total population to be approximately 1 5 million with bahrainis numbering around 720 000 june 2023 compare with arabian gulf data the bahraini government does not publish statistics that delineate its the shia and sunni muslim populations but estimates from ngos and the shia community state shia muslims represent a majority 55 to 70 per cent b the irf report on kuwait the u s government estimates the total population at 3 2 million midyear 2022 u s government figures also cite the public authority for civil information paci a local government agency which reports that the country s total population was 4 8 million in 2023 as of june paci reported there were 1 5 million citizens and 3 3 million noncitizens paci estimates 74 7 percent of citizens and noncitizens are muslims the national census does not distinguish between shia and sunni muslims nongovernmental organisations ngos and the media estimate approximately 70 percent of citizens are sunni muslims while the remaining 30 percent are shia muslims including ahmadi and ismaili muslims whom the government counts as shia c the irf report on oman states that around 41 per cent of the sultanate s population constitutes foreign guest workers regarding the national omani citizens it is estimated that 45 per cent are sunni 45 per cent are ibadi and most of the remainder are shia like its neighbours the omani government does not directly publish religious confession breakdowns note that the arda percentages in the table above differ from those provided by the irf d according to the irf report on qatar as of 2023 qataris made up approximately 11 per cent of the country s total population and that most citizens are sunni and almost all others are shia e the irf report on saudi arabia estimates that around 85 per cent of saudis are sunni the remainder are shia but in the oil rich eastern provinces of the country this latter group comprises a substantial fraction see oil s corruptive capacity f the 2023 irf report on the uae suggests that approximately 11 per cent of the country s population are emiratis of whom more than 85 per cent are sunni most of the remainder according to the report are are shia citizens who are concentrated in the emirates of dubai and sharjah 3 back country profile information is compiled from amongst others the following sources on each of the six country profile pages full reference information is provided academic cambridge university press elsevier jstor intellect discover oxford academic routledge sage springer media outlets the economist intelligence unit financial times middle east economic digest organisations arab monetary fund bertelsmann transformation index energy information agency energy institute eurostat fraser institute freedom house international energy agency international monetary fund organisation of petroleum exporting countries organisation for economic co operation and development reporters sans frontières united nations development ...
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