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Saudi Arabia has been front and center the past few
months. The oil-rich kingdom pushed OPEC, the 12-nation oil cartel, to
keep oil production up in order to put price pressure on other major oil
producers like the Iran, Russia, and the US. Aside from the oil story,
there are many more behind-the-scenes facts about this Middle East
powerhouse that many people don't know. We've got them here.
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The capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, has a large camel market. About 100
camels are sold every day.
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Saudi Arabia's labor force is about 8.412
million — but 80% (or about 6 million) of those people are considered
nonnational. Most of these people work in the oil and service sectors.
And right now, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, is working hard to reduce
unemployment of Saudis.
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Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field is the largest in the world. It has an
estimated 75 billion barrels of oil left. An Olympic-size swimming pool
can hold 660,253.09 gallons of liquid.
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Saudi Arabia's annual military expenditure is more than three times the
GDP of Afghanistan.
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Saudi Arabia is the 13th-largest country in the world, and the second
largest in the Arab world (behind only Algeria) at 830,000 square miles.
However, 95% of the country is considered to be desert or semi-desert,
and it has some of the largest desert areas including Al Nafud and Rub
al-Khali. Only 1.45% of the land is arable.
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Saudi Arabia is building Kingdom Tower, which will be the world's
tallest building in 2018. It's going to stand one kilometer tall.
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Saudi Arabia is the only country where women are forbidden to drive.
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Over a quarter of Saudi Arabia's population is under 14 years old, and
almost half of the population is under 24 years old.
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Saudi Arabia's petroleum sector is 45% of the country's total GDP —
which puts it at around $335,372 billion.Iraq's GDP is $222.879 billion,
Morocco's GDP is $104.4 billion, Rwanda's GDP is $7.451 billion, and
Tonga's GDP is $466 million.
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Saudi Arabia's health expenditures are 4.5 times the
GDP of Sierra Leone.
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Saudi Arabia is 14.5 times larger than Bangladesh in
size, but Bangladesh's population is almost six times as large.
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In 2012, over 3 million Saudis and people from outside
of Saudi Arabia went on Hajj — that's like taking the total combined
populations of Phoenix and Philadelphia and putting them in Mecca. |