Mecca

Mecca is a city in Saudi Arabia.

It sits in a dry valley. Rocky mountains stand all around it. Many Muslims travel to Mecca each year to pray at its giant mosque.

Mecca is a city in western Saudi Arabia, inland from the Red Sea. It sits 277 meters above sea level in the dry beds of the Wadi Ibrahim, a valley that only fills with water after rare storms. Mountains surround the city, and roads reach it through four gaps between them.

About 2.4 million people lived in Mecca at the 2022 census. Muslims around the world face toward the Kaaba, in Mecca's Great Mosque, when they pray. Each year many travel to the city for the hajj, a pilgrimage, or religious journey.

Mecca stands in western Saudi Arabia at an elevation of 277 m, in the dry beds of the Wadi Ibrāhīm and its short tributaries, within the Ṣirāt Mountains. Britannica lists nearby peaks such as Jabal Abū Qubays and Jabal Ajyad to the east and Mount Quʿayqʿān to the west. Four gaps in the mountains carry the routes northeast toward Minā, ʿArafāt and Al-Ṭāʾif, northwest to Medina, west to Jeddah and south toward Yemen, and modern Mecca has spread out along them.

The 2022 census counted about 2.4 million residents. Mecca is the capital of the Makkah administrative region, which also contains Jeddah and Al-Ṭāʾif. As the birthplace of Muhammad and the site of the Kaaba, the city is the destination of the hajj, which Muslims who are able try to make at least once in their lives; Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) counted 1,707,301 hajj pilgrims in 2026.

In the middle of Mecca is a giant mosque.

In its big courtyard stands the Kaaba. Kaaba means "cube" in Arabic. Next to the mosque is a very tall tower with a huge clock on top.

The Great Mosque of Mecca, called al-Masjid al-Haram in Arabic, was built around the Kaaba, a building shaped like a cube that stands in a huge courtyard. The Kaaba is about 15 meters high and is made of gray stone and marble. Covered prayer halls surround the courtyard, and today the mosque can hold up to about one million worshippers.

Just south of the mosque rises the Abraj al-Bait, a group of tall hotel towers. The tallest, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower, was finished in 2012. It reaches 601 meters to the tip of its spire, and a giant clock face sits near the top.

The Great Mosque (al-Masjid al-Haram) encloses the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building of gray stone and marble about 15 m high on a base of about 10 by 12 m, whose corners point roughly to the points of the compass. A rectangular courtyard, where pilgrims walk around the Kaaba, is ringed by covered prayer areas. The oldest standing parts date from the 16th century. The first Saudi enlargement, begun in 1955, raised the mosque's area from about 27,000 to about 152,000 m², and King Fahd's expansion from 1984 added escalators, pedestrian tunnels and air-conditioning; Britannica gives a capacity of about one million worshippers.

To the south, the Saudi government built the Abraj al-Bait complex of hotels, shops and prayer areas. Its central Makkah Royal Clock Tower, completed in 2012 to designs by Dar al-Handasah, reaches 601 m to the tip of its crescent-topped spire; the Skyscraper Museum describes its clock as the world's largest.

Many families live in Mecca all year.

Children go to school, and grown-ups go to work. Fruit and vegetables are brought in every day. During the hajj, the city fills with visitors from many countries.

Mecca is home to families from many different countries. In the old city, houses of two or three stories built of local rock crowd close together; newer neighborhoods have concrete villas and wider streets. Schooling is free from first grade to university, and Umm al-Qura University was founded here in 1979.

Little farmland surrounds the city, so fruit and vegetables arrive every day from nearby valleys. Welcoming pilgrims is the city's biggest work: in 2026, more than 1.5 million of the hajj pilgrims came from other countries, and almost all of them arrived by air.

Britannica describes Mecca as one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, home to people from many countries. Population density is highest in the compact old city, where traditional two- and three-story houses are built of local rock, and lowest in modern districts of concrete villas along the roads to Minā, Jeddah and Medina. Education is free from primary school to university level, and Umm al-Qura University was founded in 1979.

Arable land and water are scarce: vegetables and fruit come in daily from wadis such as Wadi Fāṭimah and from the Al-Ṭāʾif area, and other food is imported through Jeddah. Services for pilgrims are the main economic activity. GASTAT's 2026 figures show 1,546,655 pilgrims from abroad, of whom 1,485,729 arrived by air, 54,429 by road and 6,497 by sea, plus 160,646 citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia. Britannica notes that entry to Mecca is permitted only to Muslims.