Saudi Arabian National Holiday

Unification of the Kingdom

The 23rd of September is the celebrated unification of the kingdoms Nejd and Hejaz in 1932.

Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is the largest Arab state in Western Asia by land area (approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula) and the second-largest in the Arab world (after Algeria). It is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen in the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast. The population of Saudi Arabia as of July 2013 is estimated to be 26,939,583 including 5,576,076 non-nationals. The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic.
Before the inception of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, modern-day Saudi Arabia consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd and parts of eastern Arabia (Al-Hasa) and southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdulaziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as Al Saud. The country has been an absolute monarchy since its inception. It describes itself as being Islamic and is highly influenced by Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.