Twitter’s impact on the Arab world is well documented, notably in the key role it played in the Arab Spring uprisings, and while the platform is still heavily regulated in many Arab countries, new research suggests that Twitter use in these regions is very much on the rise.

The total number of active Twitter users in Arab countries is now up to 1,311,882, says new data through to March of this year. Kuwait leads the way with a Twitter population penetration of some 8.13 percent, ahead of Bahrain (4.28 percent), Qatar (2.22 percent), the UAE (2.16 percent) and Saudi Arabia (1.37 percent).

Kuwait sent almost sixty million tweets in the month of March. The most popular topic across all Arab countries was the #Bahrain hashtag.

Twitter added language support for Arabic back in March – that’s now looking like a very proactive step.

This infographic, using data from the Dubai School of Government’s Arab Social Media Report and created by Khaled El Ahmad, takes a closer look at Twitter’s growing stance in Arab countries.

(Source: Visual.ly. Arab world image via Shutterstock.)