A city of one and a half million
Dammam is the administrative capital of the Eastern Province, a desert plain that runs from the Arabian Gulf coast inland to the al-Dahna sands. The 2022 census counted 1,532,326 people in the city, 29.9% of the province's population, split almost evenly between Saudis and non-Saudis.
Between May and August the air is hot and humid, with temperatures reaching 46°C. From November to February they fall to around 8°C, with occasional rain. People have settled this coast for more than five thousand years, in contact with Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Greeks and the Persians.
Gateway to the east
King Abdulaziz Port is the Kingdom's main port on the Gulf. Built under Aramco's supervision and expanded and renamed in 1961, it has 43 berths and a railway to the Dry Port in Riyadh. King Fahd International Airport opened in 2000 with capacity for ten million passengers, and the King Fahd Causeway, opened in 1986, runs 25 km to Bahrain; in 2023 it carried 374 million passengers.
Museum and stadium
The Dammam Regional Museum opened in 1985 inside the city's public library, and work on a new five-storey home in King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Park, on the waterfront, began in 2011. Football here means Al-Ettifaq, founded in 1945, and Prince Mohammed bin Fahd Stadium, the province's main ground. For the coast to the south, see Al-Khobar Waterfront.