In a narrower sense, Kuwait City can also refer only to the town's historic core, which nowadays is part of the Capital Governorate and seamlessly merges with the adjacent urban areas.

[4] In the eighteenth century, Kuwait gradually became a principal commercial center for the transit of goods between India, Muscat, Baghdad, Persia, and Arabia.

[8] Between the years 1775 and 1779, the Indian trade routes with Baghdad, Aleppo, Smyrna and Constantinople were diverted to Kuwait.

[12][13] During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ship vessels made in Kuwait carried the bulk of trade between the ports of India, East Africa and the Red Sea.

[17] Regional geopolitical turbulence helped foster economic prosperity in Kuwait in the second half of the 18th century.

[19] In the late 18th century, Kuwait partly functioned as a haven for Basra's merchants fleeing Ottoman government persecution.

[17][21][22] During the reign of Mubarak Al-Sabah, Kuwait was dubbed the "Marseille of the Gulf" because its economic vitality attracted a large variety of people.

[23] In the first decades of the twentieth century, Kuwait had a well-established elite: wealthy trading families who were linked by marriage and shared economic interests.

This massive growth attracted many foreign workers, especially from Jordan, Egypt and India and helped finance the development of a new master plan, which the state approved in 1952.

In June 1961, Kuwait became independent with the end of the British protectorate and the sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah became an Emir.

[38] In the early 1980s, Kuwait experienced a major economic crisis after the Souk Al-Manakh stock market crash and decrease in oil price.

[40] Kuwait was a leading regional hub of science and technology in the 1960s and 1970s up until the early 1980s, the scientific research sector significantly suffered due to the terror attacks.

[41] Al Sabah were attracted to Islamists preaching the virtues of a hierarchical order that included loyalty to the Kuwaiti monarchy.

After a series of failed diplomatic negotiations, the United States led a coalition to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, in what became known as the Gulf War.

As they retreated, Iraqi forces carried out a scorched earth policy by setting oil wells on fire.

Upon the death of the Emir Jaber, in January 2006, Saad Al-Sabah succeeded him but was removed nine days later by the Kuwaiti parliament due to his ailing health.

[48] With an area of 860 km2 (330 sq mi), Bubiyan is the largest island in Kuwait and is connected to the rest of the country by a 2,380-metre-long (7,808 ft) bridge.

[49] The land area is considered arable[47] and sparse vegetation is found along its 499-kilometre-long (310 mi)[dubious – discuss] coastline.

[47] Kuwait's Burgan field has a total capacity of approximately 70 billion barrels (1.1×1010 m3) of proven oil reserves.

[50] The resulting soil contamination due to oil and soot accumulation had made eastern and south-eastern parts of Kuwait uninhabitable.

Sand and oil residue had reduced large parts of the Kuwaiti desert to semi-asphalt surfaces.