Mecca Province

Mecca Province (, ), officially Makkah Province, is one of the 13 provinces of Saudi Arabia. It is the third-largest province by area at and the second most populous with 7,769,994 inhabitants as of 2022. It is located in the historic Hejaz region, and has an extended coastline on the Red Sea. Its capital is Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, and its largest city is Jeddah, which is Saudi Arabia's main port city. The province accounts for 26.29% of the population of Saudi Arabia and is named after the Islamic holy city of Mecca.

Historically, the area was inhabited by the Quraysh, the Banu Kinanah and the Thaqif, among other tribes. Part of the Hejaz region, the province has seen several exchanges of power between many Islamic realms within a short period of time. The province gains its significance as it contains the city of Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, and several other historic Islamic sites, such as the village of Hudaybiyyah, where the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah is said to have been agreed upon. More recently, the province was modernized under the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after the oil boom. Mecca is the second-largest city in the province and third-largest in the kingdom at 1,323,624.

The province is divided into 11 governorates, of which 5 have been classified Category A and the rest, Category B, with Mecca serving as the administrative headquarters and capital of the province. It is governed by an Emir, translated as Governor from Arabic, who is assisted by the Deputy Governor, both appointed by the King of Saudi Arabia. The current emir is Khalid Al-Faisal, who has held the position for a second term since 2015.

History

Ancient Mecca was an oasis on the old caravan trade route that linked the Mediterranean world with South Arabia, East Africa, and South Asia. The town was located about midway between Maʾrib in the south and Petra in the north, and it gradually developed by Roman and Byzantine times into an important trade and religious centre. Ptolemy's inclusion of Macoraba (Μακοράβα), a city of the Arabian interior, in his Guide to Geography was long held to show that Mecca was known to the Hellenistic world. Since the late 20th century, however, some scholarship has questioned the identification of Macoraba with Mecca.

According to Islamic tradition, Abraham and Ishmael, his son by Hagar, built the Kaʿbah as the house of God. The central point of pilgrimage in Mecca before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the cube-shaped stone building has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. During pre-Islamic times the region was ruled by a series of Arab tribes. Under the Quraysh it became a type of city-state, with strong commercial links to the rest of Arabia, Ethiopia, and Europe. Mecca became a place for trade, for pilgrimage, and for tribal gatherings.

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|1992 |4,467,670

|2004 |5,797,184

|2010 |6,927,477

|2022|7,769,994

Population

According to the Population Characteristics Surveys conducted by the General Authority of Statistics, the Mecca Province had a population of 8,557,766 as of December 2017, of which 4,516,577 were Saudis and 4,041,189 were foreign nationals. Divided by gender, 4,864,584 were males and 3,693,182 were females. The Mecca Province is the most populous province of Saudi Arabia and it has a population even larger than that of the Riyadh Region. With an estimated population of 4,076,000 as of 2019, Jeddah is the most populous city in the province and the second-most populous city in the country. 1.233 The governorate with the largest population is the Jeddah Governorate. The sex ratio was approximately 132 males per 100 females.

Religion

Censuses in Saudi Arabia do not collect or report data concerning religion. Sunni Islam in its Wahhabi version is the predominant religious tradition overall in the country, with smaller numbers of Hanafis, Hanbalis, Shafi‘is and Malikis. Muslims are estimated to live within the province, with even smaller numbers of Hindus, Christians and other religious groups, most of whom are expatriates from India and the Philippines, who mostly reside in Jeddah.

Languages

The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The main regional dialect of the Mecca Province spoken by Saudis is Hejazi Arabic, with a minority of Najdi Arabic speakers in the eastern parts of the region. Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are some of the Indian languages, Filipino/Tagalog, Bengali and Urdu.

Education

From 1,823,598 Saudi male residents above the age of 10, 87.57%, representing 1,596,946 persons had some form of formal education, while 226,652 were illiterate. As for females, from the 1,765,666 residents above the age of 10, 77.28% or 1,364,529 persons were formally educated, while 401,137 were illiterate.

Healthcare

Of the province's Saudi residents who were above the age of 15, 1.15% reported some form of disability in 2016, with visual impairment being the most common form of disability, followed by reduced mobility, while 107,770 persons reported severe or extreme disability.

Government

The position of Governor (Emir) of the Makkah Province has been held by the following individuals since 1925:

{| class="wikitable"

Provincial Governors of the Mecca Region since 1925

!Name

!Position held

!Appointed by

!Under

| rowspan="2" |Faisal bin Abdulaziz

|1925-32

| rowspan="2" |King Abdulaziz ibn Saud

|Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd

|1932-58

| rowspan="10" |Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

|Mutaib bin Abdulaziz

|1958-61

| rowspan="3" |King Saud bin Abdulaziz

|Abdullah bin Sa'ud

|1961-63

|Mishaal bin Abdulaziz

|1963-71

|Fawwaz bin Abdulaziz

|1971-80

|King Faisal bin Abdulaziz

|Majid bin Abdulaziz

|1980-99

|King Khalid bin Abdulaziz

|Abdulmajeed bin Abdulaziz

|1999-2007

|King Fahd bin Abdulaziz

|Khalid bin Faisal

|2007-13

| rowspan="2" |King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz

|Mishaal bin Abdullah

|2013-15

|Khalid bin Faisal

<br />

|2015–present

|King Salman bin Abdulaziz

Governorates

The Mecca region has 17 governorates, of which 5, Jeddah, Rabigh, Ta'if, Qunfudhah, and Laith, have been classified Category A, while the rest are Category B. The City of Mecca () constitutes Mecca and the area surrounding the city and is the administrative center and capital of the province.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Governorates of the Mecca Region with 2022 population

!Category

!Name

!Population (2022)

!Total population

|Jeddah Governorate

|3,751,722

| rowspan="17" |7,769,994

|Capital

|Holy Capital Governorate

|2,427,924

| rowspan="3" |A

|Ta'if Governorate

|913,374

|Qunfudhah Governorate

|205,188

|Rabigh Governorate

|112,383

| rowspan="2" |B

|Bahrah Governorate

|94,603

|Jumum Governorate

|89,575

|Laith Governorate

|73,753

| rowspan="9" |B

|Ardiyat Governorate

|65,078

|Khulays Governorate

|51,338

|Ranyah Governorate

|49,854

|Turbah Governorate

|41,769

|Khurmah Governorate

|38,744

|Adam Governorate

|33,958

|Muwayh Governorate

|29,065

|Maysan Governorate

|28,765

|Kamil Governorate

|14,370

Notes

References

External links

Emirate of Mecca Region – official website
A travel through the province of Mecca, Splendid Arabia: A travel site with photos and routes
Umm Al Qura University in Mecca (archived)
General Authority for Statistics – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia