This wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom - an archipelago of one large island and dozens of smaller ones off the coast of Saudi Arabia (and connected to it by causeway - is one of the Middle East´s smallest countries – packing a population of 1.6 million into a territory just a fifth the size of Wales and smaller even than the U.S. state of Rhode Island – you can drive across the main island in just under an hour. But it also boasts one of the region´s longest inhabited histories. stretching back more than 4,000 years to the Dilmun civilization (3000–500 BCE), a prosperous, nearly mythical land that acted as a prosperous trading hub between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization of west Asia.
Over the centuries, these islands came under the influence or control of Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians before becoming Islamic in the 7th century; it´s been ruled since the 18th century by the Al Khalifa dynasty and was a British protectorate from 1861 to 1971. Economically, for generations Bahrain was known for its pearl diving and production, but oil was discovered in 1932, making the kingdom one of the first Gulf states to develop a petroleum economy, and today it´s a constitutional monarchy which has diversified its economy into finance, services, and tourism while maintaining its strategic position in Gulf geopolitics.
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