Profile of Kuwait

Official name: State of Kuwait Independent since: 1961

Former colonial rulers: Ottoman Empire; Great Britain

Location: northern coast of Persian Gulf

Area: 6,880 square miles

Capital: Kuwait City

Population: 2.1 million (2002 est.)

Official language: Arabic Major religion: Islam

Gross domestic product: US$30.9 billion (2001 est.)

Major exports: crude petroleum and petroleum products Military expenditures: US$1.97 billion (2001)

And the population of Kuwait had reached about 100,000. However, changing technology and trade patterns, the world economic depression of the 1930's, and competition from Japanese cultured pearls undermined the Kuwaiti pearling industry. The future appeared bleak to Kuwaitis until oil was discovered in the country in 1938. Over the next several decades Kuwait became one of the richest countries in the world and developed a standard of living far above those of its neighbors.

The ruling family of modern Kuwait, the al-Sabah, traces its power back to the eighteenth century. Since then Kuwait has been continuously ruled and has prospered under the al-Sabah family. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the ruling family paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire's sultan, who nominally ruled over the area, in return for the sultan's protection against external threats.

The Ottomans were a powerful Turkish Muslim people who reigned from the fourteenth century until the end of World War I. Although their headquarters were in Istanbul in present-day Turkey, they ruled over most of the Middle East and the Balkan Peninsula during the height of their power.

In the late nineteenth century the Ottomans became weak and corrupt. The Kuwaiti ruling family then turned to the British Empire for protection. Sheikh Mubarak, the al-Sabah ruler who reigned from 1896 to 1915, signed an agreement with the British in 1899. According to this agreement, the royal family would only seek advice from the British with regard to their foreign relations. This relationship later led to a self-governing state of Kuwait under British protection.