The Arabian Peninsula, or simply Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia. It accounts for the majority of the land situated on the Arabian plate. With an area of , it is the world's largest peninsula—roughly comparable in size to India. Nine countries are located on the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, as well as the southern halves of Iraq and Jordan.
Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula is bounded by Mesopotamia and the Levant to the north and northwest and therewithal surrounded by the Indian Ocean: the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman to the east and northeast; the Arabian Sea to the southeast; and the Gulf of Aden to the south, the Strait of Mandeb to the southwest, and the Red Sea to the west. Prior to the 7th century AD, Greco-Roman conceptions of "Arabia" were broader than the modern peninsula and extended into the Southern Levant, including the Sinai, the Negev, and regions of modern Jordan, as reflected in the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, whose capital was Petra. In this context, Sinai formed part of a wider regional classification rather than an isolated extension of the peninsula, despite being partly separated from it by the Gulf of Aqaba and situated on the African plate. Most of the peninsula is covered by the Arabian Desert, which is an extension of the Sahara Desert.
Between 56 and 23 million years ago, the peninsula was formed as a result of the Red Sea Rift involving the African and Arabian plates. It was among the first regions to be occupied by modern humans following their departure from Africa during the Paleolithic. The historical record of the Arabian Peninsula is thought to have begun in the early 1st millennium BC, when writing systems were introduced to the region. For much of the peninsula's ancient history, it was sparsely populated by Arab tribes and home to a variety of local and foreign religious practices, while numerous empires and kingdoms exercised limited political authority in different areas. However, in the 7th century AD, the entire Arabian Peninsula was politically, culturally, and religiously united by the Arab leader Muhammad after he claimed prophethood and founded Islam, thus enabling the Arabization of many non-Arab civilizations throughout much of Asia and Africa.
While the Greco-Roman world had known the Arabian Peninsula in three large regions—Petraea for the north, Deserta for the centre, and Felix for the south—medieval Muslim geographers instead divided it into four main regions: the Central Plateau (Najd and Al-Yamama), South Arabia (Yemen, Hadhramaut, and southwestern Oman), Al-Bahrain (Eastern Arabia or Al-Hassa), and the Hejaz (Tihamah for the western coast). Since the 20th century, it has been of critical significance in both Arab and global geopolitics due to the discovery and subsequent industrialization of vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Most of the peninsula's countries are petrocracies and accordingly play a key role in the petroleum politics defining the contemporary Middle East.
Etymology
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In antiquity, the term "Arabia" encompassed a larger area than the current term "Arabian Peninsula" and included the Arabian Desert and large parts of the Syrian–Arabian desert. During the Hellenistic period, the area was known as Arabia (). The Romans named three regions "Arabia":
- Arabia Petraea (): it consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula and north-western Arabian Peninsula. It was the only one that became a province, with Petra (in Jordan) as its capital.
- Arabia Deserta (): signified the desert lands of Arabia. As a name for the region, it remained popular into the 19th and 20th centuries, and was used in Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).
- Arabia Felix (): was used by geographers to describe the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, mostly what is now Yemen, which enjoys more rainfall, is much greener than the rest of the peninsula and has long enjoyed much more productive fields.
One of the nomes of Ptolemaic Egypt was named Arabia.
Arabians used a north–south division of Arabia: ash-Sham vs. al-Yaman, or Arabia Deserta vs. Arabia Felix. Arabia Felix had originally been used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Because its use became limited to the south, the whole peninsula was simply called Arabia. Arabia Deserta was the entire desert region extending north from Arabia Felix to Palmyra and the Euphrates, including all the area between Pelusium on the Nile and Babylon. This area was also called Arabia and not sharply distinguished from the peninsula.
The Arabs and the Ottoman Empire considered the west of the Arabian Peninsula region where the Arabs lived 'the land of the Arabs'—billad al-'Arab (Arabia), and its major divisions were the bilad al-Sham (Levant), bilad al-Yaman (Yemen), and bilad al-'Iraq (Iraq). The Ottomans used the term Arabistan in a broad sense for the region starting from Cilicia, where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria, through Palestine, and on through the remainder of the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas.
The provinces of Arabia were: al-Tih, the Sinai peninsula, Hejaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadramaut, Mahra and Shilu, Oman, Hasa, Bahrain, Dahna, Nufud, the Hammad, which included the deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia.
Geography
thumb|A map of the geographic regions of the Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is located in the continent of Asia and is bounded by (clockwise) the Persian Gulf on the north-east, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the south-east, the Gulf of Aden, and the Guardafui Channel on the south, and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the south-west and the Red Sea, which is located on the south-west and west.
Political boundaries
thumb|219px|The constituent countries of Arabia
The Peninsula's constituent countries are (clockwise from north to south) Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the east, Oman on the south-east, Yemen on the south, and Saudi Arabia at the center. The island country of Bahrain lies just off the east coast of the Peninsula.
The six countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the Peninsula. The Peninsula contains the world's largest reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, the only peninsular country in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home to the Arabic television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the United States–led 2003 invasion of Iraq.