1.
Flag of Saudi Arabia
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The flag of Saudi Arabia is the flag used by the government of Saudi Arabia since March 15,1973. It is a flag featuring in white an Arabic inscription. The inscription is the Islamic creed, or shahada, the green of the flag represents Islam and the sword stands for the strictness in applying justice. The flag is manufactured with identical obverse and reverse sides, to ensure the shahada reads correctly, from right to left, the sword points to the left on both sides, in the direction of the script. The flag is hoisted, meaning that it is hoisted to the left of the flagpole. The flags green is Pantone 349 C Because the shahada is considered holy, Saudi Arabia protested against its inclusion on a planned football to be issued by FIFA, bearing all the flags of the participants of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Saudi officials said that kicking the creed with the foot was completely unacceptable, the flag is never lowered to half-mast as a sign of mourning, because lowering it would be considered blasphemous. Similarly, the flags of Afghanistan, Somaliland, and Iraq are also never at half-mast The normal flag cannot be hoisted vertically according to Saudi legislation. Special vertical flags are manufactured both the inscription and the emblem are rotated, although this is rare, as most Arab countries traditionally do not hoist flags vertically. The Al Saud, the family of Saudi Arabia, has long been closely associated with the Wahhabi religious movement. The Wahhabis, since the 18th century, had used the shahada on their flags, in 1902 Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Al-Saud, leader of the Al Saud and the future founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, added a sword to this flag. The design of the flag was not standardized prior to March 15,1973, by 1938, the flag had basically assumed its present form, except the sword had a different design and it, along with the shahada above, took up more of the flags space. The precursor states to Saudi Arabia were Nejd and Hejaz, the state flag of Nejd followed todays Saudi flag pattern very closely. The state of Hijaz followed the patterns seen in countries like Palestine, from 1744 a crescent was present. From 1902 until 1921 a different Arabic inscription was used, one of the primary opponents to the Saudis was the Al Rashid family in the north of the peninsula, until their defeat in 1921. The civil ensign, for use by merchant vessels at sea, is a flag with the state flag in the canton with a white border. The royal standard is the flag with the palm tree. Saudi Arabia at Flags of the World World Flags Information, Saudi Arabian page Saudi Arabian flag and associated information
2.
Emblem of Saudi Arabia
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The Saudi Arabian national emblem was adopted in 1950. According to the Saudi Basic Law, it consists of two crossed swords with a tree in the space above and between the blades. The two swords represent the Kingdom of Hejaz and the Sultanate of Najd and its dependencies, which were united under Ibn Saud in 1926, the palm tree represents the Kingdoms assets which are defined as its people, heritage, history, and resources natural and non-natural. Thus, the palm is shown to be guarded by the two swords, which represent the force to be used in defence of the nation, the Emblem appears on government documents, diplomatic missions, as well as several Saudi Arabian flags. It is emblazoned in gold on the flag of the Armed Forces of Saudi Arabia, the latter is essentially the national flag with the added Emblem in gold, which is placed in the lower part of the hoist and not in the canton as with other royal standards. The Emblems lower position is in deference to the nature of the Shahada
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia 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 to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
5.
Provinces of Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is divided into 13 regions. Each region is divided into governorates and the capital, which has the status of municipality headed by mayors. The governorates are subdivided into subgovernorates. Around 1980, the Northern Province was created from the Western and Central
Saudi Arabia
