A country of the northeast Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf. Settled by Arab tribes in the early 18th century, it became a British protectorate in 1897 and an independent kingdom in 1961. Iraq invaded and occupied the country in 1990, sparking the Persian Gulf War (1991), which ended with Iraqi troops being driven out by a coalition of Arab and Western forces. With its major oil reserves, discovered in 1938, it has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. The city of Kuwait is its capital. Population: 2,510,000.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.