Geography & history of Oman

Oman, officially Sultanate of Oman, formerly Muscat and Oman, independent sultanate (1995 est. pop. 2,125,000), 82,000 sq mi (212,380 sq km), SE Arabian peninsula, bounded by the Gulf of Oman (E), the Arabian Sea (S), Yemen and Saudi Arabia (W), and the United Arab Emirates (N), which separate the main portion of the country from an exclave that juts into the Strait of Hormuz. The capital is Muscat. Oman comprises a coastal plain and an interior region of hills and desert. Dates, limes, nuts, and vegetables are cultivated in the north and livestock are raised in the southwest, but the major product is oil. Natural gas production and copper mining were developed in the early 1980s to diversify the economy. The population is predominantly Muslim Arab, with Pakistani, Indian, and Zanzibari minorities.
History
Occupied by Portugal in 1508 and Turkey in 1659, Oman came under Ahmad ibn Said of Yemen, founder of the present royal line, in 1741. It has had close ties with Britain since the 19th cent. Qabus bin Said overthrew the strict regime of his father, Sultan Said bin Timur, in 1970, instituted a program of liberalization and modernization, and put down (1975) leftist guerrilla forces operating in Dhofar prov., in the south.

In 1980 the U.S. obtained the use of ports and airfields in Oman in exchange for economic and military aid. In 1981 Oman joined other Arab Persian Gulf nations in founding the Gulf Cooperation Council. The country opened its bases to international coalition forces against Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and to U.S. forces mounting strikes against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden in 2001. In 1996 the sultan announced a new basic law that provided for a legislature with limited powers and guaranteed basic civil liberties for Omani citizens. In 2003 the lower house of the advisory council was freely elected for the first time.

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