Hajar before Riyadh
Riyadh stands on the ruins of Hajar, the old capital of the Yamamah region, which appears in sources as early as 715 BCE. The Tasm and Jadis tribes lived here about 2,500 years ago, and stone structures and millstones near ath-Thumamah point to settlement some eight thousand years back.
Tradition holds that Ubaid bin Tha'laba al-Hanafi named the place Hajar after taking thirty palaces and thirty gardens. The name Riyadh is more recent: only in the seventeenth century did it become the collective name for the cluster of villages. In 1902 King Abdulaziz entered the town, a moment remembered at al-Masmak Palace.
The city today
Riyadh sits about 600 m above sea level on the eastern side of the Najd plateau and covers no more than two thousand square kilometres. The 2022 census counted 7,009,120 residents, and the city grows by up to 4 percent a year, against a national rate of 2.11 percent.
Its skyline is marked by al-Faisaliah Tower, opened in 2000, and Kingdom Tower, opened in 2002. Since 27 November 2024 a 176 km metro has linked 85 stations, while King Salman Park is rising on the site of the old airport.