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Ash Sharqiyah, known as Eastern Province is the largest province of Saudi Arabia, located in the east of the country on the coasts of the Persian Gulf, and has borders with Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen. It has an area of 710,000 kmē and a population of 2,886,700 (1999). Its capital is Dammam. A few kilometres from Dammam is the second city, Al-Khobar, which is more modern and more westernised than Dammam. The King Fahd Causeway, completed in the 1980s, links the Eastern Province to Bahrain. Typically, the causeway is crowded with expats and Saudis on a Thursday afternoon as they all head for the clubs and nightlife in Saudi Arabia's more tolerant neighbour.
The Eastern Province is largely Shi'ite, which makes it a very dangerous place for the ruling Sunni family to visit. Some villages are virtually no-go areas for the security forces.
Saudi Aramco, the oil producing company of the Kingdom, is based in Dhahran, which is located in the Eastern Province, and most decisions on oil policy and production are made there. Saudi Arabia's main oil and gas fields are located either in the province or offshore. Petroleum from the fields is shipped to dozens of countries from the oil port of Ras Tanura and is also used as feedstock in numerous industrial plants in Jubail.
The Kingdom's second major product, dates, is also a large part of the Eastern Province's economy. Every year thousands of tonnes of dates are harvested from the date palms in the giant oasis of Al-Ahsa, which is south of Dammam.
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