🇰🇼 Kuwait
Kuwait City
Kuwait City is the capital and primate city of Kuwait — a city-state on the Persian Gulf, 4.7 million people on a flat desert coastline at the northwestern tip of the Arabian Gulf, bordered by Iraq to the north and Saudi Arabia to the south. Kuwait's modern identity was shaped by oil: discovered in 1938, commercially extracted from 1946, and nationalized in 1975 (the Kuwait Oil Company became a state enterprise); Kuwait today holds the 6th-largest proven oil reserves in the world (approximately 100 billion barrels — 7% of the global total), and the Kuwaiti state's sovereign wealth fund (Kuwait Investment Authority, established 1953 — the world's oldest sovereign wealth fund) manages over USD 750 billion. The 1990 Iraqi invasion and subsequent liberation (August 2, 1990 — February 28, 1991) left Kuwait with a complex national identity: the Liberation Tower (605m — the second-tallest telecommunications tower in the Middle East, built 1996 to replace the one destroyed by Iraqi forces) and the Kuwait Towers (the three towers on the waterfront, the most recognised landmark in Kuwait and the symbol of Kuwaiti independence) define the skyline. The Grand Mosque (Kuwait's largest mosque, 1986), the Sadu House (the Bedouin weaving arts centre), the Dickson House Museum (the house of H.R.P. Dickson, the British Political Agent who was the most important mediator between the Kuwaiti ruling family and the British colonial administration), and the Camel Racing Track (the traditional sport of the Gulf) give the city layers of historical meaning beyond the oil modernity. Best months: November–March.