There is a huge country on the world map where there is not a single river

In our country, rivers are not considered something amazing and rare - we have plenty of them. Not all countries are so lucky, and in some places only 2-3 rivers flow over a large area. But there are countries that have no rivers at all. There are 17 of them on the planet and the largest of them is Saudi Arabia.

The area of Saudi Arabia is 2,149,690 square kilometers. 95 percent of this territory is occupied by the Arabian Desert. In summer, the average temperature in these parts is + 45 degrees, and precipitation is extremely rare even in winter. In some parts of the country there is no rain for several years.

Most of the natural fresh water in Saudi Arabia is extracted from aquifers underground. A small part of it is collected after precipitation in mountainous areas, and 50 percent is obtained by desalination of seawater. Unfortunately, groundwater is not being renewed and there are fewer of them every year.

There are no countries on the Arabian Peninsula at all where permanent rivers flow. In some places, streams form during heavy rainfall, but then they dry up, leaving an empty channel for years. The states of the largest peninsula of the planet rely mainly on seawater, which is desalinated in special installations.

In some places, water accumulates in natural depressions after rains and this solves the problem of water supply for a short time. But no one hopes for this source of moisture — rare precipitation and intense heat do not contribute to the replenishment of stocks and their preservation.

There are no rivers on the Arabian Peninsula in Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Yemen is very lucky in this regard — in its southwest there is the Wadi Hadhramaut River, which is filled with water most of the time.

It should be added that countries without rivers do not always suffer from water shortages. For example, the smallest state without natural reservoirs, the Vatican, receives water through pipes from Italy. The Principality of Monaco also dispenses with rivers and lakes — it is supplied with water by France.

As for island States, for them the absence of a river system can be called the norm. There are no rivers in the Bahamas (Atlantic), Bahrain (Persian Gulf), Malta (Mediterranean Sea). They are not seen in the Maldives and Comoros (Indian Ocean), on the islands of Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Nauru (Pacific Ocean).