Category Eastern Province Saudi Arabia
Dhahran
Dhahran is a city located in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and is a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry. It forms part of the Dammam Metropolitan; the Dammam metropolitan area, or greater Dammam, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Ad Dammam, Eastern Province, and its suburbs. It is the area that is closely linked to the city through social, economic, and cultural ties. The Dammam metropolitan area—mainly known as greater Dammam—is the largest metropolitan area in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia formed by three main neighboring cities: Dammam, Dhahran, and Khobar. These three respectable cities are sometimes referred to as the triplet cities. The metropolitan area of the triplet cities has an estimated population of 4,140,000 as of 2012. Greater Dammam also includes many other smaller cities such as Al Qatif, Safwa, and Ras Tanura. The complete metropolitan area has an estimated population of 5,100,000, making it the fifth largest populated area in the Kingdom.
Large oil reserves were first identified in the Dhahran area in 1931, and in 1935, Standard Oil drilled the first commercially viable oil well. Standard Oil later established a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia called the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), now fully owned by the Saudi government and known as Saudi Aramco. Dhahran has been Saudi Aramco’s headquarters for 80 years and is its first and largest gated compound with more than 9,700 residents. Employees and dependents of Aramco, known as Aramcons, have a tendency to use Dhahran to solely refer to the Aramco camp while using Khobar and/or Dammam to refer to the area outside the camp. The Saudi Aramco Residential Camp makes up most of the city of Dhahran today.
Geography
Dhahran is a short distance west of downtown Khobar. It is about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of Dammam. Both are older Saudi port cities on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Looking farther afield, Dhahran is northeast of Abqaiq, and southeast of Qatif and, further north, Ras Tanura, a major oil port. The island of Kingdom of Bahrain is also within easy driving distance to the east (about 20 miles (32 km)), across the King Fahd Causeway, from Khobar.
Geology
The patch of desert on which the city is built is hilly and rocky, and most of the earliest productive oil wells in Saudi Arabia were drilled in the area, such as Dammam Well #7: “Prosperity Well,” the first commercially viable oil well in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. This well is still in production 70 years later. This later led to the selection of two barren nearby hills as the place for Aramco to construct its headquarters.[1]The Dhahran-Dammam area is one of two regions, the other being Jeddah, that were selected as potential sites to build the first Saudi nuclear reactor.
Climate
Dhahran’s climate is characterized by hot, humid summers, and cold long winters. Temperatures can rise to more than 40 °C (100 °F) in the summer, coupled with extreme humidity (85&ndash100%)[citation needed], given the city’s proximity to the Persian Gulf. The highest recorded temperature in Dhahran is 51.1 °C (124.0 °F).[1] In winter, the temperature rarely falls below −2 °C (28 °F), with the lowest ever recorded being −5 °C (23 °F) in January 1964.[2] Rain falls almost exclusively between the months of November and May. The Shamal winds usually blow across the city in the early months of the summer, bringing dust storms that can reduce visibility to a few metres. These winds can last for up to six months. On July 8, 2003, the dew point was 35 °C (95 °F) while the temperature was 42 °C (108 °F), resulting in a heat index of 68 to 71 °C (154 to 160 °F), one of the highest heat indexes in the world.[3]
Dammam
Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich region in the world. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province and several government departments are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province, and the fifth largest in Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca and Medina. It forms part of the Dammam Metropolitan Area; The Dammam metropolitan area, or greater Dammam, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Ad Dammam, Eastern Province, and its suburbs. It is the area that is closely linked to the city through social, economic, and cultural ties. The Dammam metropolitan area: mainly known as greater Dammam, is the largest metropolitan area in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia formed by three main neighboring cities: Dammam, Dhahran, and Khobar these 3 respectable cities are sometimes referred to as the triplet cities.
The metropolitan area of the triplet cities has an estimated population of 4,140,000 as of 2012. Greater Dammam also includes many other smaller cities such as: Al Qatif, Safwa, and Ras Tanura. Dammam Metropolitan Area, and the rest of the Eastern Province, is served by the King Fahd International Airport (KFIA), the largest airport in the world in terms of land area (approximately 780 km2), about 20 km to the northwest of the city. Dammam’s King Abdul Aziz Sea Port is the largest on the Persian Gulf. Its import-export traffic in the country is second only to Jeddah Seaport.
Etymology
The origins of the name “Dammam” is disputed, some say that it is onomatopoeic and it was given to the area because of a drum positioned in a nearby keep, when sounded for the alarm (a melody called “damdamah”) to alert the residents of returning fishermen’s ships, others say that the name was given according to the Arabic word “dawwama” (whirlpool) which indicated a nearby sea site that dhows usually had to avoid.
History
Ad Dammam was first inhabited by a family from Al Bin Ali clan and a number of Persian Howela families in the early 1923. The Albinali family, led by Sheikh Nasir Ahmad Albinali, were invited by HRM the late King Abdul Aziz from Bahrain to come and inhabit Dammam. While the AlDossary families led by Sheikh Ahmed Ibn Abdullah ibn Hassan Al Dossary migrated from Bahrain and were given the chance to choose a land where to settle by HRM the late King Abdul Aziz. Ad Dammam was immediately chosen for its vicinity to the island of Bahrain as the clan hoped to head back there soon, but the British rule in the region made it very hard for them to move in every sense (divide et impera) so they finally realized they had to settle there for good. Years later, Sheikh Ahmed’s brother moved south where he and his family settled in Al Khobar, which by that time was already inhabited. However this tiny episode gave to Khobar a population boost and close ties with the bigger city of Dammam.
When the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, the area was the site of several hamlets that depended on fishing and pearls for their survival. Over a span of a little more than half a century, the area has developed into a thriving hub of industry, commerce and science, and home to more than half a million people. The area’s transformation was launched with the discovery of oil in commercial quantities. The Eastern Province sits atop one of the largest oil fields in the world, and it was here in Dhahran in 1936 that Aramco, the predecessor of the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco, dug the famous Dammam No. 7 well that proved beyond doubt that the Kingdom possessed a large supply of hydrocarbons.
The discovery of new oil fields to the south, west and north of Dammam in the 1940s and 1950s, which now account for a quarter of the world’s proven oil reserves, triggered a building boom. The Albinali Family, led by Sheikh Muhammad Nasir Albinali and Brothers played a crucial role in the development of the city of Dammam and the Eastern province in various fields. Experts and technicians from throughout the Kingdom and the world gathered to help search for new oil fields and bring them on-stream. New pipelines had to be installed, storage facilities built and jetties constructed to handle tankers. The growing number of experts working in Dhahran required the building of housing, hospitals, schools for their children and other amenities. Before long, Dhahran, the corporate headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, was spilling out into the desert in all directions.
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