Jeddah,a Saudi Arabian city located on the
coast of the
Red Sea, is the major urban
center in
western Saudi Arabia, the largest in the
Western Province, and the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the
capital city Riyadh. The population of
the city currently stands at over 3.4 million. It is considered as the
commercial capital of Saudi Arabia and the wealthest city in Middle East and western
Asia.Jeddah is the principal
gateway to
Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, which able-bodied Muslims are required to visit at least once in a
lifetime.
Popular Saudi opinion regards Jeddah as the most
liberal and
cosmopolitan of Saudi cities in spite of its historic role as
port and gateway to the holy city of Mecca. For over
one thousand years, Jeddah has received millions of pilgrims of different ethnicities and backgrounds, from
Africa,
Central Asia, Southeast Asia , Europe and Middle east , many of whom remained and became
citizens of the city. As a result, Jeddah is much more ethnically diverse than most Saudi cities and its
culture more
eclectic in
nature (in contrast with the more geographically isolated, homogeneous, and religiously strict capital Riyadh). Different nationalities of Muslims often prescribe to different sects of Islam, and the presence of these sects in Hejazi culture has helped make the city relatively more tolerant traditionally. Added to the traditional diversity, the oil-boom of the past 50 years has brought hundreds of thousands of working immigrants and foreign workers from non-Muslim countries the majority originating from continents such as
North America (Unites States of America), Europe (Western Europe), and Asia (
South and South-East Asia).
; "Jiddah")
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