Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Jeddah

28 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Jeddah Montage © MrJoker07/cc-by-sa-4.0

Jeddah Montage © MrJoker07/cc-by-sa-4.0

Jeddah is a city in the Hijaz Tihamah region on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. With a population currently at 4.2 million people, Jeddah is an important commercial hub in Saudi Arabia. Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca, Islam‘s holiest city, which able-bodied Muslims are required to visit at least once in their lifetime. It is also a gateway to Medina, the second holiest place in Islam. Historically, Jeddah has been well known for its legendary money changers. The largest of said money changers at the time (the late Sheikh Salem Bin Mahfouz) eventually founded Saudi Arabia’s first bank, the National Commercial Bank (NCB).   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Ta’if

27 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Historic Shubra Palace © Mmasudtu/cc-by-sa-4.0

Historic Shubra Palace © Mmasudtu/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ta’if is a city in Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia at an elevation of 1,879 m (6,165 ft) on the slopes of Sarawat Mountains (Al-Sarawat Mountains). It has a population of 1,200,000 people and is the unofficial summer capital. The city is the center of an agricultural area known for its grapes, pomegranate, figs, roses and honey. Ta’if was still little more than a medieval city when the Saudis took control of it. However, they later embarked on a project of modernizing the city. Saudi Arabia’s first public power generator was set up in Ta’if in the late 1940s. In terms of building roads to the isolated city, in 1965 the then King Faisal inaugurated the 54 mi (87 km) mountain highway between Mecca and Ta’if, and in 1974 the 400 mile Ta’if-AbhaJizan highway was started. By the 1991 Gulf War, Ta’if was such a modern city in terms of communications that it was chosen as the site of the Rendon Group‘s television and radio network, which used to feed the news to Kuwait during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Hofuf

26 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Al Hasa Oasis © Shijan Kaakkara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Al Hasa Oasis © Shijan Kaakkara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Al-Hofuf is the major urban center in the Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is also very well known for being one of the largest date producers in the world, and for its old souks and palaces. Historically, Hofuf made textiles out of wool, silk, and cotton. The town was also renowned for its fruit of the date palm, the Arabs considering the khalasi variety of dates, grown in Hofuf, as also the fardh variety of Oman, among the best. As of 1920, the city was known for making coffee pots from silver and brass.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia – Dammam

25 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

Dammam street market © flickr.com - edward musiak/cc-by-sa-2.0

Dammam street market © flickr.com – edward musiak/cc-by-sa-2.0

Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province, plus several government departments, are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province, and the sixth largest in Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Taif. Like the other 12 regional capitals of Saudi Arabia, Dammam is not included within any governorate; instead, it is governed as a “municipality” headed by a mayor. The origins of the name “Dammam” are disputed. Some say that it is onomatopoeic and was given to the area because of a drum positioned in a nearby keep, which was sounded (in a pattern called “damdamah”) to alert the residents of returning fishermen’s ships. Others say that the name comes from the Arabic word “dawwama” (whirlpool), which indicated a nearby sea site that dhows usually had to avoid.   read more…

Theme Week Saudi Arabia

24 April 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  19 minutes

Medina - Al-Masjid al-Nabawi - The Mosque of the Prophet © flickr.com - Omar Chatriwala/cc-by-2.0

Medina – Al-Masjid al-Nabawi – The Mosque of the Prophet © flickr.com – Omar Chatriwala/cc-by-2.0

Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab sovereign state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the fifth-largest state in Asia and second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert or barren landforms. The state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The state’s official language is Arabic. English is however widely used, even on street signs. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia (‘Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called “the predominant feature of Saudi culture”, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called “the Land of the Two Holy Mosques” in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. Mecca and Medina are however completely blocked for non-Muslims. A violation of this rule will lead to penalties and deportation.   read more…

Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia

13 January 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Design & Products Reading Time:  9 minutes

© kingdom.com.sa

© kingdom.com.sa

Jeddah Tower, previously known as Kingdom Tower and Mile-High Tower, is a skyscraper under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at a preliminary cost of SR4.6 billion (US$1.23 billion). If completed as planned, the Jeddah Tower will reach unprecedented heights becoming the tallest building in the world, as well as the first structure to reach the one-kilometer-high mark. Initially planned to be 1.6 km (1 mile) high, the geology of the area proved unsuitable for a tower of that height. The design, created by American architect Adrian Smith, who also designed Burj Khalifa in Dubai, incorporates many unique structural and aesthetic features. The large, outdoor sky terrace will overlook the Red Sea from over 610 metres (2,000 ft) height and have an area of over 697 square metres (7,500 sq ft). The creator and leader of the project is Saudi Arabian Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the wealthiest man in the Middle East, grandson of Ibn Saud, and nephew of the Kings of Saudi Arabia after him. Al-Waleed is the chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) which is a partner in Jeddah Economic Company (JEC), which was formed in 2009 for the development of Jeddah Tower and City.   read more…

Mecca in Saudi Arabia

15 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

The Masjid al-Haram and Kaaba © Ariandra 03/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Masjid al-Haram and Kaaba © Ariandra 03/cc-by-sa-3.0

Mecca is a city in the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of that kingdom’s Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the hajj (“pilgrimage”) period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhu al-Hijjah.   read more…

Al Faisaliyah Center in Saudi Arabia

25 April 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Hotels Reading Time:  4 minutes

King Fahd Road © BroadArrow/cc-by-sa-3.0

King Fahd Road © BroadArrow/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Al Faisaliyah Centre is a commercial skyscraper located in the business district of Riyadh. It is the fourth tallest building in Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom Centre, Burj Rafal and Abraj Al Bait. It is also called Star Dome.   read more…

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

1 April 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Energy, Building Automation, Green Buildings, Green Technologies, House of the Month, Intelligent Buildings, Sustainability, Environment, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Aboluay/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Aboluay/cc-by-sa-4.0

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is a private research university in Saudi Arabia. The University’s core campus, located on the Red Sea at Thuwal, is sited on more than 36 square kilometres (14 sq mi), encompassing a marine sanctuary and research facility. The university is 20 km away north of the King Abdullah Economic City. KAUST is part of a small number of highly planned, specialized, research and technology-intensive municipalities in the world that incorporate a living environment, similar to Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates or Tsukuba Science City in Japan.   read more…

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