Explore Kuwait

Location:
Kuwait

Currency:
Kuwaiti dinar (KD)

Communications:
The telephone code for Kuwait: + 965

About:
The small Middle East country of Kuwait, an independent Arab Emirate, holds 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves.

Its Arabic names means fort, and in essence that's exactly how it was formed, as it was once home to a small desert community until the Al-Sabah family took control, and literally built the first (fortified) settlement in the mid-1700s.

It was then just a simple mud-walled city, dependent on regional trade with nearby countries and tribes, the pearl business, and on its productive fishing in the Persian Gulf.

After decades of in-house family squabbles, and on-going disputes with the Ottoman Empire, Britain, in 1899, agreed to manage foreign relations and defense for the ruling Al-Sabah dynasty, and did so until the country gained independence in 1961.

During the late 1940s, the extent of Kuwait's oil resources began to emerge and the long term potential of the petroleum industry was realized.

On television, with the world watching, Kuwait was attacked and overrun by Iraq on August 2, 1990. Following weeks of aerial bombardment, a US-led, UN coalition began a ground assault on February 23, 1991, that liberated Kuwait in just four days.

This small, oil-rich nation, has resumed a somewhat normal life since the costly Gulf War, however, in the volatile Middle East, controversy is often just around the corner.

With a searing-hot climate and its dominate desert topography, Kuwait's agricultural development is very limited. Subsequently, with the exception of fish, it depends almost completely on imported food.