Riyadh - Capital of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Riyadh (Arabic: الرياض‎ ar-Riyāḍ) is the capital and largest city of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, located in Ar Riyad Province in the Najd region. It is situated in the centre of the Arabian peninsula on a large plateau and is home to over 4,260,000[1] people (around 20% of the nation's population).

The name Riyadh is derived from the Arabic word meaning a place of gardens and trees ("rawdah"). With many wadis (a former water course, now dry) in the vicinity, Riyadh has been since antiquity a fertile area set in the heartland of the Arabian peninsula.

Once a small walled city, Riyadh has developed into a dynamic metropolis over the years. The first major thrust came during the oil boom of the 1950s, when older structures were demolished to make way for commercial development. Today, it is one of the fastest growing and most prosperous cities in the world.