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The history of Saudi Arabia as a nation state began with the emergence of the Al Saud dynasty in central Arabia in 1744 and the subsequent establishment of the Emirate of Diriyah. Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern Saudi Arabia, was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations; the prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world.The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of mainly four distinct historical regions: Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa), and Southern Arabia ('Asir).[9]



The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, known in the West as Ibn Saud. Abdulaziz 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. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy governed along Islamist lines. 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.