subject: Bahrain - an archipelago of 33 islands [print this page] Bahrain, the official name of the country is Kingdom of Bahrain. The country is a small island in the Persian Gulf. The country is an archipelago of 33 islands.
Geography:
To the west of Saudi Arabia and it is connected through King Fahd Causeway. Qatar lies to the southeast and Iran lies on the East.
Bahrain is mostly a flat and arid archipelago. The total area of the country is 665 km2.
Government
Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy since the amendments in its constitution in the year 2002. Because of the changes in the constitution the State of Bahrain became the Kingdom of Bahrain.
National Assembly is the new legislature of the country and it consists of two houses:
Majlis al-Shura: an appointed Consultative Council
Majlis al-Nawab: an elected Chamber of Deputies
Demographics
In 2008, the population of Bahrain is 1.05 Million and from which 517 thousand are non-nationals. However, majority of them are ethnically Arab, but there are large number of people from South Asia as well. In the same year, an approximate population of 290 thousand was calculated to be Indian Nationals that were living in Bahrain. Indians are the largest expatriate community living in Bahrain.
The official religion of the country is Islam and majority of the population practice it. Although there are number of immigrants and guest workers from Non-Muslim countries like India, Sri Lanka and Philippines the percentage of Muslim in the total population has reduced a little in the past few years. 81.2% of Bahrain population was Muslims according to the census of 2001, Christians were 9% and Hindus and other religious were 9.8%.
