Saudi Arabiaالسعودية

Long before Islam, the Arabian Peninsula was a corridor. Frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia travelled north on camel caravans to Egypt, the Levant and the Mediterranean, and oasis towns along the route grew rich on tolls and trade. In the north-west the kingdoms of Dadan and Lihyan left tombs and inscriptions around AlUla, and around the turn of the common era the Nabataeans, better known for Petra in Jordan, carved the monumental tombs of Hegra into the sandstone. Rock art at Jubbah and Shuwaymis near Hail records human life in the region thousands of years earlier, from a greener time.

In the early 7th century the Prophet Muhammad preached in Makkah, a trading town around the Kaaba shrine, and moved with his followers to Yathrib, renamed Madinah, in 622. Within a few decades of his death in 632 the new faith and its armies had spread from Spain to Central Asia. The political centre soon left Arabia for Damascus and Baghdad, but Makkah and Madinah kept their religious weight, and the annual Hajj brought Muslims from across the world. Control of the holy cities passed through the hands of local sharifs and outside powers, including the Mamluks and the Ottomans.

Central Arabia, the Najd, was a patchwork of oasis towns and tribes. In 1727 Muhammad ibn Saud's family established a state at Diriyah, and in 1744 he allied with the reforming preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whose strict call to return to early Islam gave the state its ideology. The first Saudi state expanded across much of the peninsula and even took Makkah, until an Ottoman–Egyptian army destroyed Diriyah in 1818. A second, smaller state followed from Riyadh and collapsed in 1891 in rivalry with the Al Rashid of Hail.

In 1902 the young Abdulaziz ibn Saud, returning from exile in Kuwait, took Riyadh's Masmak fort in a night raid. Over thirty years he conquered the Najd, the Eastern Province, Hail and, in 1925, the Hejaz with Makkah and Madinah, helped by the Ikhwan, tribal religious fighters he later had to crush. In 1932 he proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Every king since has been one of his sons: Saud, Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, Abdullah and, since 2015, Salman.

Oil was found at Dammam in 1938 by American geologists, and after the Second World War exports turned a poor desert state into one of the richest in the world. The 1973 oil embargo showed its power; the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque by militants led the monarchy to tighten social and religious rules for four decades. The kingdom hosted US forces in the 1991 Gulf War, faced al-Qaeda attacks in the 2000s, and in 2015 began a military intervention in Yemen that still shapes security near the southern border.

Since 2016, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Vision 2030 has changed daily life faster than any period since oil. Women gained the right to drive in 2018, cinemas and concerts returned, the religious police lost arrest powers, and tourist visas launched in 2019. At the same time the government has jailed critics and activists, and the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 damaged its image abroad. Riyadh will host Expo 2030 and the country the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

Saudi Arabia has about 35 million residents, and roughly four in ten are foreign nationals. Saudis themselves come from different worlds: Bedouin tribes of the desert, settled oasis families of the Najd, the cosmopolitan port and pilgrim society of the Hejaz, the mountain farmers of Asir, and the Shia communities of the Eastern Province. Tribal names and lineage still matter in marriage and social standing, even in the cities.

Foreign workers run much of the economy. Engineers and managers from Western and Arab countries, construction and service workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan, and domestic workers from Asia and Africa live under the sponsorship (kafala) system, which ties residence to an employer. Reforms since 2021 allow more job mobility, but rights groups still report abuse. For a visitor, the driver, waiter and shop assistant are more often expatriates than Saudis.

The population is young: most Saudis are under 35. This generation grew up online, fills cafés and concerts, studied abroad on government scholarships, and has seen more change in ten years than their parents did in forty. Saudisation policies push them into private-sector jobs once filled by foreigners, from retail to tourism. Women's workforce participation roughly doubled between 2017 and the mid-2020s.

Family is the centre of social life. Weekends mean gatherings at the family majlis, desert picnics in winter and long evenings at malls. Hospitality is a point of honour: guests are welcomed with coffee and dates, and hosts insist on paying. Public space was long divided by gender, with family and singles sections in restaurants and separate entrances; many of these rules have been relaxed since 2019, though families still often prefer their own sections.

Traditional dress remains the norm for Saudis. Men wear the white thobe with a red-checked shemagh or white ghutra held by a black agal; women mostly wear the abaya, now in many colours and cuts, and many cover their hair or face. Foreign visitors are not expected to copy this, but modest dress is required in public. Social control has shifted from the street to the state: the religious police are gone, while public decency rules and cybercrime laws are enforced by ordinary police.

Islam is the state religion and the basis of law. The king carries the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and the legitimacy of the Saudi state rests on protecting Makkah and Madinah and on the 18th-century alliance with the Wahhabi reform movement, which called for strict monotheism and rejected the veneration of saints and tombs. That is why historic tombs and shrines were levelled, and why mosques in Saudi Arabia tend to be plain.

The five daily prayers set the rhythm of the day. Their times follow the sun, so they shift through the year. For decades shops were obliged to close at each prayer; the rule has been loosened, but many still pull down their shutters for twenty to thirty minutes. Friday midday prayer is the week's high point, and the streets fall quiet around it. Visitors quickly learn to plan meals and errands between prayers.

The Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, takes place over five days in the month of Dhu al-Hijjah and draws around two million pilgrims to Makkah, Mina, Muzdalifah and Arafat. Each country receives a quota, and pilgrims register through their national systems and the Nusuk platform. The lesser pilgrimage, Umrah, can be made at any other time of year, and since 2019 Muslims holding a tourist visa may perform it with a Nusuk permit. Millions come in Ramadan, when Umrah is thought to carry special merit.

Makkah is closed to non-Muslims, with checkpoints on the approach highways. Madinah's central area around the Prophet's Mosque is also reserved for Muslims, though non-Muslims may visit other parts of the city. The Rawdah, the area between the Prophet's pulpit and his tomb, requires a timed Nusuk booking even for Muslims. These rules are enforced, and visitors should follow signs and local advice.

Most Saudis are Sunni; a Shia minority of perhaps 10–15% lives mainly in the Eastern Province around Qatif and Al-Ahsa, with Ismaili communities in Najran. There are no churches, temples or synagogues, and public non-Muslim worship is not allowed, although private worship by foreigners is tolerated. Since 2016 official religious discourse has become more moderate, with less emphasis on religious policing and more on national identity, a shift visible in the Founding Day holiday that celebrates 1727 rather than the 1744 religious pact.

Traditional Saudi architecture follows the materials of each region. In the Najd, towns like Diriyah were built of sun-dried mud brick on stone foundations, with thick walls, small windows, triangular vents and crenellated parapets that kept rooms cool. The restored At-Turaif district shows the style at palace scale, and the new Riyadh buildings of the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre borrow from it. Mud brick needs constant upkeep, which is why so many old towns crumbled when families moved to concrete villas.

The Hejaz built with coral stone cut from the Red Sea reefs, and Jeddah's Al-Balad district has tall merchant houses with carved wooden rawashin, projecting latticed balconies that caught the sea breeze and gave privacy. Nasseef House and Beit Al-Matbouli are the best-known examples. Neglect and fires damaged many houses, and a large restoration programme has been under way since the district joined the UNESCO list in 2014.

The Asir mountains produced a different world: multi-storey stone towers with slate bands to shed rain, as in Rijal Almaa, and the Al-Qatt Al-Asiri tradition of women painting interior walls in bright geometric bands, inscribed by UNESCO in 2017. Sadu weaving, the Bedouin tent-cloth craft of geometric patterns in camel and goat hair, is another listed tradition. Calligraphy, the most honoured art in Islam, runs from Qur'an manuscripts to the kiswah, the black silk cloth embroidered in gold that covers the Kaaba and is renewed each year.

Music and poetry are old desert arts. Nabati poetry in colloquial Arabic is recited and broadcast widely, and televised poetry contests draw huge audiences. The ardah, a sword dance with drums and chanted verse, is the national dance performed on state occasions and at National Day. Performing arts were restricted for decades; since 2018 concerts, theatre and cinema have returned, and Saudi films now appear at international festivals.

Contemporary art has become a state priority. The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, the Islamic Arts Biennale at Jeddah's Hajj Terminal, Desert X AlUla and the Noor Riyadh light festival bring international artists, while Saudi artists such as Ahmed Mater and Manal AlDowayan show worldwide. Ithra, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Dhahran, and the Maraya mirrored concert hall in AlUla show how new architecture is used to announce the country's opening.

Saudi food grew from what the desert and oases could provide: dates, wheat, milk, lamb, goat and camel. Dates were the staple for centuries, carried on journeys and eaten with coffee, and the kingdom still grows hundreds of varieties in Qassim, Al-Ahsa and Madinah. Wheat was ground into porridges such as jareesh and breads such as qursan, cooked slowly with meat and vegetables in Najdi kitchens.

Rice came through trade with India and Persia and became the base of the national dish, kabsa, a spiced rice cooked with meat, tomatoes, dried lime and a mixture of cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper. Mandi, from Yemen's Hadramawt, cooks meat in a pit oven over the rice, and Yemeni restaurants serving it on floor mats are among the country's most popular places to eat. Each region has its own version and pride.

The Hejaz, with centuries of pilgrims from every Muslim land, has the most mixed cuisine. Indian, Indonesian, Turkish, Egyptian and East African cooks all left dishes behind: mutabbaq pastries, saleeg rice in milk, foul with bread, spiced balila chickpeas. The south, including Asir, eats honey, ghee and slow-roasted haneeth lamb, while the Gulf coast shares its fish and rice machboos with the rest of the Gulf.

Hospitality is inseparable from food. Arabic coffee, lightly roasted and spiced with cardamom and sometimes saffron, is poured from a dallah pot into small handleless cups, always with dates. The host serves; guests drink a few cups and shake the cup to signal they have had enough. A feast for guests means whole lambs on platters of rice, eaten with the right hand. Coffee was designated a national symbol, and 2022 was declared the Year of Saudi Coffee.

Modern Saudi eating is also fast food and cafés. The Jeddah fried-chicken chain Al Baik has a cult following, specialty coffee shops multiply on every block, and malls are lined with international chains. Ramadan transforms the day: families break the fast at sunset with dates, water, soup and sambousa, then eat and socialise late into the night, and markets and restaurants stay open until the pre-dawn meal.

Saudi Arabia holds some of the largest proven oil reserves on Earth, and oil still provides most government revenue. Saudi Aramco, founded as an American concession and fully nationalised by 1980, is one of the world's most valuable companies. Oil money paid for free education, health care, subsidised fuel and power, and public-sector jobs for citizens, and built cities almost from scratch in a few decades.

Vision 2030, launched in 2016, aims to reduce that dependence. The Public Investment Fund backs giga-projects: NEOM in the north-west, the Red Sea and Amaala resorts on the coast, the Diriyah heritage city, Qiddiya entertainment city and King Salman Park in Riyadh. Several have been scaled back or delayed since 2024 as costs grew. Tourism targets were raised repeatedly, and the kingdom counts domestic trips and religious visitors in its totals.

The landscape is more varied than the image of endless dunes. The Empty Quarter in the south is the largest continuous sand sea in the world, but much of the country is gravel plain and rocky plateau. The Tuwaiq escarpment runs for hundreds of kilometres near Riyadh and ends in the cliffs of the Edge of the World. In the north-west, sandstone towers and canyons around AlUla and Tabuk shelter oases, and the Asir mountains in the south-west rise above 3,000 m, green with juniper and terraces.

Water is the country's great constraint. There are no permanent rivers; ancient aquifers are being drained by agriculture, and the kingdom runs some of the largest desalination plants in the world to supply its cities. Wadis flood suddenly after winter storms, and Jeddah has suffered deadly floods. Summer temperatures inland exceed 45 °C and are rising, which is why so much life moves indoors and into the night.

For a visitor, the economy shows in cheap fuel and fast food, costly hotels and tours, very new infrastructure and a service workforce drawn from across Asia and Africa. Riyadh's six-line metro, the Haramain high-speed railway and new airports make movement easier than a decade ago, while the reliance on cars, air conditioning and imported labour tells you how the country has been built.