Rising from the barren desert, its towering skyscrapers glittering in the fierce sun, the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, is one of the most splendid and rich cities in the modern world, sprawling across about 600 square miles (1,600 square kilometres) in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.
Once a small oasis known for its date orchards (hence the origin of its name which in Arabic means ’place of gardens’), Riyadh’s phenomenal growth spurt began in 1902 when the desert lord Ibn Saud took over the city determined to turn it into the centre of his Arabic kingdom. Thirty years later it became the capital of the new country of Saudi Arabia, and fuelled by the revenue of the country’s abundant oil fields, it has burgeoned into an awesome modern metropolis with a population well in excess of four million.
