Location and name
The al-Jouf Region lies in the north of Saudi Arabia, one of the Kingdom's thirteen administrative regions. It borders Jordan to the north, the Northern Borders Region to the east, the Tabuk Region to the west and the Hail Region to the south. In the past, an overland route crossed it, linking the Kingdom and the Gulf states with their northern neighbours.
Covering about 85,000 km², or 4.3% of the Kingdom, it is the ninth-largest region by area. Its land lies lower than the rest of the Kingdom, which gives it its name: al-Jawf means a hollow or low-lying place. Its administrative capital and urban centre is Sakaka, described as the "main northern gate to the Arabian Peninsula".
Population
The region had 595,822 residents in the 2022 Saudi census, tenth among the regions, or the fourth least populous.
Of these, 236,669 people, or 39.7%, live in Sakaka, the region's largest and most populous city. Sakaka's population grew eight-fold between the 1970s and the early 2000s, turning a rural settlement into a growing city; its population growth rate is 3.4% and it covers about 100 km².
Emirate and governorates
The Emirate of the al-Jouf Region was established after the unification of the Kingdom. Prince Faisal bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been governor since 2018 (1440 AH), and Prince Miteb bin Mishal bin Badr bin Saud bin Abdulaziz was appointed deputy governor with excellent rank by Royal Order on 12 December 2023 (28 Jumada al-Ula 1445 AH). The Emirate stands on Makkah al-Mukarramah Street in Sakaka, about 29 km from al-Jouf Airport.
No governorate shares the region's name. Besides Sakaka, it has three governorates, al-Qurayyat in Category A and Dumat al-Jandal and Tabarjal in Category B, and about 33 administrative centres.
Climate and Dumat al-Jandal Lake
The climate is continental desert: cold winters and hot, dry summers. Summer temperatures average about 30°C with highs of 42°C; the winter average is 8.5°C, and in January temperatures can fall to between 2 and 7 degrees below zero.
About 50 km north of Sakaka lies Dumat al-Jandal Lake, the largest lake in the Kingdom. National celebrations and festivals are held on its shores, and the recreational facilities around it have made it one of the region's main attractions.
The oldest traces
Some 45 km north of Sakaka is al-Shuwayhitiyah, one of the oldest human settlement sites in the Kingdom and among the oldest in the ancient Near East, where pre-Acheulean quartz tools have been found. Stone tools and primitive axes dating to 200,000 BCE have been recovered north and southeast of the Sakaka basin, and Wadi al-Sirhan holds stone circles and flint tools from around the fourth millennium BCE.
About 10 km south of Sakaka stand the Columns of Rajajil, from the fourth millennium BCE: stone pillars about 3 m high, set in groups of four aligned to sunrise and sunset, some fifty groups in all. Their name comes from a local word for a gathering of men, since from a distance they look like men standing. Excavations have yielded Chalcolithic finds about 7,000 years old, including scrapers, awls, blades, pottery fragments, ornaments and beads.
In the Sakaka oasis is the Camel Site, discovered by a joint Saudi-French team in 2016. Its 21 life-size animal sculptures, most of them camels, differ in technique from the rock art usually found in the Kingdom and date to the Neolithic, between 5600 and 5200 BCE. According to Saudipedia, it may be one of the oldest sites in the world for life-size animal carving.
Dumat al-Jandal through the ages
Dumat al-Jandal, about 40 km from Sakaka, is one of the most significant historic cities of the Arabian Peninsula. Assyrian texts of the eighth century BCE call it "Adumatu". It is first mentioned in the first half of the first millennium BCE, when the Assyrian king Sennacherib campaigned against its kingdom; it remained under Assyrian rule until the sixth century BCE, and in 555 BCE the Babylonian king Nabonidus took it. Murals in the northern palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668–626 BCE) show Arabs on camels fighting Assyrians on horseback.
Marid Castle stands on a rocky hill in the al-Dir' quarter, with four conical corner towers, stone foundations and mud-brick upper walls. Queen Zenobia of Palmyra mentioned it during her campaign of 267–272 CE, and excavations in 1976 found Nabataean and Roman pottery. The oasis also holds the Omar bin al-Khattab Mosque, near which Nabataean pottery and an inscription were found, the historic al-Dir' quarter, the old market and the al-Jouf Regional Museum.
Nabataean finds in the governorate include a coin showing Shaqilat, wife of King Aretas IV (9 BCE–40 CE), and communal graves at al-Sunaymiyat, northwest of Dumat al-Jandal, from the Nabataean and Roman periods, holding human bones in vessels with pottery, beads, earrings and copper coins.
Castles, palaces and inscriptions
North of Sakaka, on a rocky mountain surrounded by ancient farms, stands Zaabal Castle, described as one of the oldest castles in the Arabian Peninsula. It dates to the Nabataean period, between the first century BCE and the first century CE, covers about 5,600 m² and has been restored several times. Nearby is the rock-cut Sisra Well, 15 m deep today, with an internal rock staircase and carved channels.
In al-Qurayyat, Kaf Palace stands 12 km north of the town at the foot of Mount al-Saidi; its foundation inscription dates it to 1920. Built of poplar wood, mud, iron and stone over about 3,005 m², it has conical towers, buildings for hospitality, government and residence, a mosque, storerooms, a kitchen and a prison. At al-Hadithah, also in al-Qurayyat Governorate, is a black basalt palace with two towers built by King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud in 1952, and at Ithra a palace believed to be Nabataean that remained in use in the Islamic era.
The region is rich in rock art and inscriptions: about 11,400 drawings have been recorded on 1,085 rocks, Thamudic inscriptions span the eighth century BCE to the third century CE, and Qarrat al-Naysa carries Nabataean and Thamudic inscriptions and more than a hundred Islamic ones.
Energy and agriculture
Al-Jouf is described as the Kingdom's renewable energy hub and a pillar of economic diversification away from oil. Dumat al-Jandal Governorate has a 400 MW wind farm, and the Sakaka solar photovoltaic plant in the capital produces 300 MW over six square kilometres.
It is also a diversified food basket and a mainstay of food security. The region has a modern olive farm, produces an estimated 16.55% of the Kingdom's vegetables and counts about 3,500 agricultural projects and 12,500 farms, with the highest agricultural output in the Kingdom. Farms use drip irrigation and a computerised system that sets water quantities from field sensor data.
Education and transport
The region has one public university, Jouf University, with about 18 faculties, its main campus in Sakaka and branches in the other governorates.
Al-Jouf Airport in Sakaka, with a capacity of about 175,000 passengers a year, and al-Qurayyat Domestic Airport serve the region, while the Turaif and Arar domestic airports lie outside it, about two hours' drive away. Road 80 crosses the region from the Tabuk Region in the northwest to the Saudi-Iraqi border north of Arar, and is the main road link to and from Dumat al-Jandal.