Jeddah

Jeddah is a city in Saudi Arabia. It sits on the shore of the Red Sea.

More than three million people live there. Ships come and go from its port.

Jeddah is a port city on the Red Sea, in western Saudi Arabia. At the 2022 census, 3,712,917 people lived there, which makes it the second-biggest city in the country after the capital, Riyadh.

Universalis calls Jeddah the main port of Arabia. Its sea is not easy for ships: lagoons, salt marshes and coral reefs fill the bay, with only narrow channels between them. Jeddah grew anyway, thanks to its nearness to Mecca, 72 kilometers inland, and Medina.

Saudi Arabia's General Statistics Authority counted 3,712,917 people in Jiddah at the census of 22 May 2022 (via City Population), up from 2,046,251 in 1992, 2,803,600 in 2004 and 3,430,697 in 2010; only Ar-Riyāḍ, with 6,924,566, was larger. The city lies in the Makkah region.

Universalis (Jean-Marc Prost-Tournier) notes that Jeddah became the leading port of Arabia despite a harsh climate and poor natural harbor conditions (lagoons, salt marshes and a bay crowded with coral reefs cut by narrow channels), thanks to its nearness to Mecca (72 km) and Medina (419 km).

Look at the palm trees wrapped in twinkly lights! A wide path down the middle is painted in bright colors.

Tall towers glow far away at the end of the street.

This photo was taken in Jeddah on the night of 15 March 2025. Rows of palm trees, their trunks wrapped in small lights, line a wide avenue, and a path painted in bright shapes runs down the middle. Cars drive on each side, and tall towers lit in blue and white rise at the far end.

Jeddah's old buildings look very different. In Historic Jeddah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014, tall houses of coral stone have big decorated wooden windows called Roshan.

Commons: 'Jeddah at Night', own work by Kolaiel, CC0, dated 15 March 2025, with a camera location about 16 km north-northwest of the historic center; the photographer names no street or building, so none is named here.

UNESCO (site 1361, inscribed 2014, 17.92 ha, about one-third of the old walled city): Historic Jeddah keeps the Red Sea building tradition once common on both coasts of the sea: tower houses decorated with large wooden Roshan, built in the late 19th century by merchant families, and lower coral stone houses, mosques, ribats (lodgings), souks and small squares. The houses have no courtyard; the ground floor held offices and shops, and rooms were rented to pilgrims.

Jeddah has old markets called souks. People buy and sell goods in their crowded streets.

Many pilgrims pass through Jeddah on their way to Mecca.

In Historic Jeddah, UNESCO says, old souks (markets) run from the sea toward the Makkah Gate. When UNESCO listed it in 2014, its streets were still full of shops, small cafés and street food sellers, and people from many countries lived and worked there.

Universalis says Jeddah is one of the places that welcome Muslim pilgrims, with an international airport, quarantine stations, hospitals and pilgrim housing. Factories in the city include oil refineries and food, textile, medicine and metal works.

UNESCO: Historic Jeddah is a living urban area of homes and businesses, with mosques and charitable buildings; in its 2014 description, century-old firms, retail shops, souks, small cafés, restaurants and street food vendors were concentrated there, and the souks run east to west from the sea to the Makkah Gate, with ribats and wakalas (inns) that once housed pilgrims.

Universalis: after the embassies left for Riyadh in 1986, the large private firms that stayed kept a varied industry going (refineries, food processing, textiles, pharmaceuticals, metalworking); the city receives Muslim pilgrims with an international airport, quarantine stations, hospitals and pilgrim housing.