The Riyadh Province ( ), also known as the Riyadh Region, is a province of Saudi Arabia, located in the geographic center of the country and the center of the Arabian Peninsula. It has an area of and with a 2017 population of 8,216,284, it is the second-largest region by both area and population, behind the Eastern Province and Mecca Province respectively. The capital governorate of the province is the Riyadh Governorate and it is named after the capital of the kingdom, Riyadh, which is the most populous city in the region and the kingdom, with a little less than two-thirds of the population of the region residing within the city. The province was governed for nearly five decades by Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz from 1963 to 2011 shortly before he became the Crown Prince in 2012. Currently, it is governed by Prince Faisal bin Bandar.
Other populous cities in the region include Al Ghat, Dawadmi, Afif, Zulfi and Majma'ah. Approximately half of the region's area is desert, and it only borders other regions of the kingdom; it has no international borders. The region borders, clockwise from the north, the Eastern Province, Najran Region, 'Asir Region, Mecca Region, Medina Region and the Al-Qassim Region. It is one of the 7 regions of the kingdom that do not have a coastline.
Population
Population development since 1992:
Subdivisions
In addition to the Municipality of Riyadh, the region is divided into 19 governorates (muhafazat) and 1 sub-governorate (markaz): Riyadh Layla 'Afif Dawadmi al-Ghat al-Gway'iyyah al-Hareeg Al Kharj Al Majma'ah Al-Muzahmiyyah al-Sulayyil Dhruma Dir'iyyah Hotat Bani Tamim Huraymila Rimah Shagra Thadig Wadi ad-Dawasir The sub-governorate (markaz) of Marat, which is tied directly to the Municipality of Riyadh. Yabrin Zulfy City
Modern history of Riyadh Province and Saudi Arabia
List of governors
References
External links
Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI), official Saudi census figures from 2004: