Oman

Why Oman works

Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, sits in the southeastern Arabian Peninsula in West Asia, sharing land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, with a coastline running along the Arabian Sea to the southeast and the Gulf of Oman to the northeast. Two exclaves, Madha and Musandam, are surrounded by the United Arab Emirates on their land borders, with Musandam's coastal boundaries formed by the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman; Madha itself covers approximately 75 square kilometres and even contains a small UAE enclave, Nahwa, belonging to the Emirate of Sharjah. With an area of 315,331 square kilometres and a population of roughly 5.46 million, Oman is the third-largest country on the Arabian Peninsula, with Muscat as its capital and largest city.

Oman is the oldest independent state in the Arab world, continuously ruled by the Al Bu Said dynasty since 1744. A century after Vasco da Gama's 1497–1498 voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, Afonso de Albuquerque captured Hormuz and Portugal governed parts of Oman for 143 years, from 1507 to 1650, fortifying Muscat as an outpost to protect its sea lanes; remnants of that Portuguese architectural style still exist in the city today. The Ottomans briefly seized the fort at Muscat in 1552 during their own contest with the Portuguese for the Persian Gulf, and later in the seventeenth century Portugal, using its Omani bases, fought the largest naval battle ever recorded in the Persian Gulf. The modern era began after Sultan Qaboos deposed his father in 1970 and opened the country up, embarking on a policy of modernisation known as the Omani Renaissance that increased spending on health, education, and welfare and outlawed slavery the same year.

Geographically, a gravel desert plain covers most of central Oman, framed by the Hajar Mountains along the north and the Dhofar Mountains along the southeast coast, where the country's main cities sit: Muscat, Sohar, and Sur in the north, and Salalah in the south. The country is known for its wadis, the Arabic term for river valleys that can temporarily fill with water when rain occurs. Ecotourism is a growing segment of the country's visitor economy, and tourism contributed 2.8 percent of Omani GDP in 2016, growing from RO 505 million in 2009 to RO 719 million in 2017; visitors from Gulf Cooperation Council countries make up the largest share of arrivals, at an estimated 48 percent, followed by visitors from other Asian countries at 17 percent.

Oman's climate is among the hottest in the region: summer temperatures in Muscat and the north average 30 to 40°C, and the country receives little rainfall overall, with Muscat averaging just 100 millimetres a year, mostly in January. The Dhofar Mountains near Salalah are the exception, with a tropical-like climate that draws seasonal rainfall from late June to late September as monsoon winds off the Indian Ocean saturate the summer air with cool moisture and heavy fog, keeping Salalah's summer temperatures a comparatively cool 20 to 30°C. The higher parts of the Jabal Akhdar mountains probably receive more than 400 millimetres of rain annually and occasionally see snow, while some stretches of coast near the island of Masirah can go an entire year without rain, and peak temperatures in the hot season, from May to September, can reach around 54°C.

Everyday dress remains a visible marker of Omani identity: the dishdasha, an ankle-length, collarless gown with long sleeves, most often white, is worn by nearly every Omani man, sometimes finished with a tasselled neckline that can be scented with perfume, and on formal occasions covered with a black or beige cloak called a bisht edged in silver or gold thread. Men's headdress includes the ghutra, a square woven cloth in a single colour with embroidered patterns, and the kummah, a cap worn during leisure hours. Omani cuisine reflects a similarly layered history: festival dishes include arsia, mashed rice and meat, and shuwa, meat cooked slowly, sometimes for up to two days, in an underground clay oven, while mashuai pairs spit-roasted kingfish with lemon rice, rukhal bread accompanies most meals, and Omani halwa, cooked raw sugar with nuts served alongside coffee, is considered a symbol of Omani hospitality.

• Oman — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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