Bahrain
A pearl-diving archipelago in the Persian Gulf
Bahrain is a low-lying archipelago in the Persian Gulf, the smallest Arab state, linked to Saudi Arabia by a causeway across shallow turquoise waters. Long famed for its pearl banks and freshwater springs that earned it a place in ancient myth, it was the first Gulf nation to strike oil and the first to plan for life beyond it. A cosmopolitan banking center with a Shia-majority population and a Sunni monarchy, it packs deep history and modern finance onto a few hundred square kilometers.
The main island is flat, arid limestone desert, its modest high point at Jabal ad Dukhan, the Mountain of Smoke. Some thirty-odd islands make up the country, much of its land extended by reclamation. The climate is hot and humid, with little rainfall. Oil and refining, banking, aluminum smelting, and tourism from the wider Gulf sustain an economy diversifying away from dwindling petroleum reserves.
Bahrain was the heart of the ancient Dilmun civilization, a trading hub between Mesopotamia and the Indus over four thousand years ago. Successive Persian, Portuguese, and Arab powers contested it before the Al Khalifa dynasty established rule in the eighteenth century and a British protectorate followed. Independence came in 1971. The capital, Manama, hosts regional finance and the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, and the island stages a Formula One Grand Prix.