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The Arabian peninsular has supported agriculture, hunting and trading cultures for thousands of years.

Living on important ancient trade routes the ancestors of modern Saudis were touched by such diverse civilization as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, India, Persia and China.

The Koran, the holy book of Islam was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed in the Western Arabian cites of Makkah and Medina in about 610 AD. The birth of the Islamic faith was a momentous historical event.

Inspired by Islam, the Arabs expanded out of Arabia spreading Islam from the Atlantic Ocean in the West to Central Asia in the East. The Muslim civilization remained vigorous for centuries, providing stability and advanced human knowledge while during the Middle Ages Western civilization was in an eclipse. For tens of millions of Muslims, all over the world, Makkah, the birthplace of Islam and of the Prophet Mohammed, and Medina, the place of the Prophet's mosque and where he is buried, are holy cities. One of the five pillars of Islam requires believers, at least once in their lifetime, to perform the Haj or pilgrimage to Makkah.

The history of modern Saudi Arabia began with Abdul Aziz Al-Saud who was officially proclaimed King in 1927. The country was named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Following the discovery of oil in 1938, rapid economic development and a rising prominence in world affairs are highlights of the most recent chapters of Saudi Arabia's history. The development of a modern Western infrastructure has not affected the Saudi Arabian culture which is wholly based on Islamic principles and the Islamic way of life.

Saudi Arabia, with an area of about 2.2 million square kilometers, occupies four-fifths of the Arabian peninsular. It is roughly nine times the size of the United Kingdom.

There is a variety of terrain but on the whole it is barren and harsh, with salt flats, gravel plains and sand dunes. In the South is the Rub Al Khali (the empty quarter), the largest sand desert in the world. In the Southwest, the mountain ranges of Assir province rise to over 2,700 meters.

Most of Saudi Arabia is hot and dry. Maximum summer temperatures average over 112 F. The coasts have high humidity. Generally, summers are hot and humid and rainfall averages less than 5 inches a year except in the Assir where about 20 inches fall. In the Eastern and Central Provinces, the period between October and May is generally pleasant with sunny days and cool nights. In the Western Province. Winter temperatures are lower than in the summer months and the evenings can be cool and pleasant.

Saudi Arabia uses the Islamic Hijri calendar; the numbering of Hijra years starts from 622 AD the year in which the prophet Mohammed migrated from Makkah to Medina. The Hijra calendar is based on the lunar year, a lunar month is the period between successive new moons. Although containing twelve months, the lunar year is 11 days shorter than the solar year and as a result the holy days gradually shift from one season to another. Friday is the Islamic day of rest, but government offices are also closed on Thursdays. There are two religious public holidays every year. The first is the Eid Al-Fitr, which comes after the Holy month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. The second is the Eid Al-adha, which is during the Hajj, the pilgrimage month.

There are approximately 17 million residents in the Kingdom, about one third of whom are expatriates. Continued expansion of the Saudi population and a vigorous program of education and training has resulted in the Kingdom, every year, becoming less and less dependent on foreign labor.

The country's three largest commercial centers are the modern cities of Riyadh, the capital, located in the Central Province, Jeddah on the West Coast and Dammam on the East Coast. All three have a modern infrastructure, state of the art communications, international airports and every facility expected by business travelers.

Jeddah
Jeddah, on the Red Sea, is the largest city in Saudi Arabia's Western Province. It hums, glitters and resounds with industry, technology and cosmopolitan life.
The story of Jeddah is one of expansion on a colossal scale. This expansion has been both rapid and recent. In 1947, the city encompassed no more than one square kilometer, it now, occupies an area of 560 square kilometers and stretches for 80km North to South along the coast. Jeddah is the Kingdom's principal seaport and the original gateway to Makkah and Madinah for pilgrims arriving by ship. Today, Jeddah welcomes 97% of all pilgrims arriving by sea and 98% of those arriving by air. This causes huge demands for consumer goods, building materials, hotel accommodation, and technical and administrative services, thus providing an enormous boost to the city's economic prosperity.
Jeddah's building boom began in the seventies and still continues at a breathtaking pace. New shopping centers, office buildings and apartment blocks are springing up everywhere. Stretches of former desert have now become part of an expanding, green, city. Jeddah has successfully managed to combine the dignity and traditions of the past with the dynamism of the modern business world.

Seventy three kilometers East of Jeddah is Makkah, Islam's holiest city. The center of the city is the Grand Mosque and the sacred well of Zamzam. The Kaaba, to which all Muslims turn when they pray, is in the central courtyard of the Grand Mosque and, according to Islamic tradition, was built by the first prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael.

Three hundred and seventy five kilometers North of Jeddah is Madinah, the second holiest city in Islam it was the first to accept the Prophet's message. The most important place in the city is the Prophet's Mosque, which contains his burial place. Everything of historical or religious significance is within the precincts forbidden to non-Muslims, although the outskirts of the city and the airport are open to all.

Riyadh
The Capital, Riyadh, is in the Central Province, which is the most traditional and the most religiously conservative region of the country. Though Riyadh is the capital, it has only recently become the real center of the Kingdom's government. Technically, Riyadh was always the capital, but until the early 1980s, embassies and the principal commercial institutions were in Jeddah. The embassies have now moved to Riyadh and are located in an area known as the Diplomatic Quarter. Riyadh has predictably undergone a major transformation. In 1932, the city was only 8.5 square kilometers in area, but by 1994, it had expanded to over 1600 square kilometers. As a matter of fact, very few buildings in Riyadh are more than 50 years old.

Dammam
Bordering the Arabian Gulf are the towns of Dammam, Dhahran, and Al-Khobar. The Eastern Province is where oil was first discovered in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s.
Dammam is the administrative center of the province. Al-Khobar is more western in orientation than Dammam. Today, Al-Khobar is at one end of the King Fahad Causeway, a 25km feat of modern engineering that links the Kingdom to the island of Bahrain.
Dhahran is the town built by ARAMCO. The city consists of the ARAMCO compound, the US Consulate and the King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals.
About 90 kilometers north of Dammam is the town of Jubail, one of the Kingdom's two newly-created industrial cities. The other one is Yanbu on the Red Sea Coast. The industrial city is a complex of petrochemical plants, an iron works and a number of smaller companies, plus a Royal Saudi Naval Base.

For more information on Saudi Arabia click on:
http://www.arab.net/saudi/saudi_contents.html
http://www.saudinf.com/main/start.htm

Riyadh | Makkah | Madinah | Jeddah | Dammam | Pilgrims  Geographical Map 
King Abdul Aziz