Kuwait

A merchant city-state at the head of the Gulf, invaded and restored by an international coalition. Kuwait was founded in the eighteenth century by families migrating from central Arabia, and it prospered on pearling, shipbuilding and the caravan trade to Aleppo, governed by the Al Sabah in consultation with merchant families whose money the ruler depended on - which is why Kuwait developed the most assertive parliament in the Gulf. Britain took over foreign relations in 1899 to keep the Ottomans and Germans out. Oil found in 1938 transformed the country and funded an early and generous welfare state. Independence came in 1961, and Iraq claimed the territory immediately on the grounds that it had been part of Basra province. Saddam Hussein invaded in August 1990 over oil pricing and debt from the war with Iran, and a coalition expelled his forces in early 1991; retreating troops set some seven hundred oil wells alight, and the fires burned for months. The National Assembly has been dissolved repeatedly but keeps returning. Women gained the vote in 2005. Kuwait City is the capital. The country has about 4.3 million people on eighteen thousand square kilometres. Arabic is official. Around two-thirds of residents are foreign nationals. The Kuwait Towers, completed in 1979, are the national emblem and were damaged in the invasion. Its sovereign wealth fund, established in 1953, is the oldest in the world. The Burgan field is among the largest ever discovered and still produces heavily. The country is flat, almost entirely desert, and has no permanent rivers.

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