Kuwait is wedged in the desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, at the northwest end of the Arabian Gulf. There are no rivers and rain is light. In the quest for drinking water, the world’s largest desalination plants were built in Kuwait in 1950. A former British protectorate, Kuwait gained independence in 1961. The total population is 1,778,000, out of which 1,050,000 are expatriates (59.06% of the total population).