العربية السعودية (al-'Arabīyah as-Su'ūdīyah);¹ البحرين (al-Bahrayn);² قطر (Qatar); al-Imarat al-'Arabiyah al-Muttahidah;³ 'Uman;⁴ al-Yaman⁵

How is the land laid out?

The peninsula is akin to a stubby 'L', with the stem directed northwest to southeast, and the much smaller base projecting northeast. The base's northernmost point is the Musandam Peninsula. The stem's east side is interrupted by the Qatar Peninsula.

Beyond narrow, arid, coastal plains, mountains fringe the west, much of the south, and the east end of the base. None of the mountains reach 4,000 meters. Most of the rest of peninsula is a plateau, which is at best semi-arid, but is often harsh, sand or gravel, desert. It is cut by seasonally wet gullies (wadis), and sometimes mitigated by oases, like ar-Riyad.⁶ In the east, excepting the end of the 'L's base, the land falls to arid lowlands, which include salt flats (sabkhas).

Who lives there?

The majority, about 17 in 20, speak dalects of Arabian Spoken Arabic. The rest--mostly immigrants since the 20th century--speak a miscellany of languages. All of Arabian Spoken Arabic sepakers and most of the others are Sunni Moslems.⁷

There are seven cities with over one million people and some other cities of note: see Saudi Peninsular cities.

Who was there before?

Semites or Proto-Semites arrived on the peninsula thousands of years ago, ultimately from Africa. Central Semites occupied the middle and north of the peninsula; South Semites the south; there are still tens of thousands of speakers of South Arabian languages today. By the classical period, the Central Semitic language of Arabic was written, and its dialects were already diverse. The change in religion in the seventh century wrought linguistic change. The prophet, Mohammed, elevated the deus otiosus, Allah, to monotheist status, eventually de-legitimizing the old god's three daughter-goddesses, who had been the old religion's focus. He spread his new religion throughout Arabia and beyond, and with it the dialect in which his holy book, the Qoran, was written. Thus, while classical Arabic is now a learned religious language, the dialects of the peninsula--and elsewhere--are Central Semitic; the South Semitic languages are quite diminished. Mohammed not only overthrew the old indiginous religion, but also ended the peninsula's religious diversity, which had included Christians--orthodox and heterodox--and Jews.

Other local topics

العربية السعودية (al-'Arabīyah as-Su'ūdīyah or Saudi Arabia)
Bahrain and Qatar
Oman and the UAE
Yemen

Footnotes

1. Saudi Arabia in English.
2. Bahrain in English.
3. United Arab Emirates in English.
4. Oman in English.
5. Yemen in English.
6. Or Riyadh.
7. There are also some Shi'ites.