Riyadh

Riyadh (/rɨˈjɑːd/; Arabic: الرياض ar-Riyāḍ Najdi pronunciation: [er.rɪˈjɑːdˤ], is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5.7 million people, and the urban centre of a region with a population of close to 7.3 million people.

The city is divided into 15 municipal districts, managed by Riyadh Municipality headed by the mayor of Riyadh, and the Riyadh Development Authority, chaired by the governor of Riyadh Province, Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud. The current mayor of Riyadh is Abdullah bin Abdulrahman Almogbel, appointed in 2012. Riyadh has the largest all-female university in the world, the Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University. It has been designated a global city.

History

Early history

During the Pre-Islamic era the city at the site was called Hajr (Arabic: حجر‎), and was reportedly founded by the tribe of Banu Hanifa. Hajr served as the capital of the province of Al Yamamah, whose governors were responsible for most of central and eastern Arabia during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras. Al-Yamamah broke away from the Abbasid Empire in 866 and the area fell under the rule of the Ukhaydhirites, who moved the capital from Hajr to nearby Al Kharj. The city then went into a long period of decline. In the 14th century, North African traveller Ibn Battuta wrote of his visit to Hajr, describing it as "the main city of Al-Yamamah, and its name is Hajr". Ibn Battuta goes on to describe it as a city of canals and trees with most of its inhabitants belonging to Bani Hanifa, and reports that he continued on with their leader to Mecca to perform the Hajj.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbiə/, ⁱ/ˌsaʊ-/), officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab 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 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 the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid inhospitable desert or barren landforms.

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. The country has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading 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. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners.

King Abdullah

King Abdullah may refer to:

Current monarchs

Previous monarchs

See also

Financial district

A financial district is the central area in some large cities where banks, insurance companies and other large corporations have head offices. Financial districts are often home to skyscrapers.

List of financial districts

Notable financial districts of the world include:

Africa

Mauritius

Morocco

South Africa

Americas

Argentina

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Mexico

Paraguay

Peru

United States

King Abdullah Financial District

The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) is a new development under construction near King Fahad Road in the Asahafa area of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia being undertaken by the Rayadah Investment Corporation on behalf of the Pension Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, consisting of 59 towers in an area of 1.6 million square metres. It will provide more than 3 million square metres of space for various uses, 62,000 parking spaces and accommodation for 12,000 residents. In 2011 it was the largest project in the world seeking green building accreditation.Bombardier won a $241m USD contract to build an automated monorail for the development. The district is designed to keep it isolated from close contact with the strictly monitored Riyadh society. The design guidelines do not separate the sexes in the district. The KAFD master plan was designed and overseen by Danish Architects Henning Larsen Henning Larsen Architects. The CEO of the development is Waleed Aleisa.