On the coast of the Red Sea lies the city of Jeddah. The metropolis is considered as Western Saudi Arabia’s major urban center. It is also the largest sea port among the areas surrounding the Red Sea and next to capital city, Riyadh, Jeddah is the second largest city and second profit-making capital. Its industrial district is considered as Saudi Arabia’s largest business cities next to Riyadh, Jubail and Yanbu.
Other major and global organizations are also situated in the city such as the International Association of Islamic Banks, the National Commercial Bank and International Islamic News Agency. The headquarters of the prevailing conglomerates in Saudi Arabia could also be found in King Abdullah Street. This district in Jeddah serves as the main hosts for commercial developments and business opportunities.
In the mid-town of the city, you could find Tahlia Street which, on the other hand, offers a wide array of fashion and shopping establishments. This area is teeming with shoppers who frequent the high-end boutiques like Burberry, Chanel, Gucci and Giorgio Armani.
Open air-art is also another of Jeddah’s features that turns the spotlight on. This started during the oil boom in the late 1970’s that encouraged the people to bring art on the street. As a result of such collective effort, the city now offers the world an enormous number of open-air works of art. These pieces of art form are scattered around the city, thus making Jeddah one of the world’s largest open-air galleries. Aside from this public display of artworks, tourists could also learn more about the city’s culture and history by visiting its museums. There are about a dozen of them that guarantee not just fun but learning at the same time.
Like other Saudi Arabian countries, Jeddah offers an arid climate. Its humid temperature also remains even during winter; the temperature in the afternoons is 25 °C and drops to 15 °C at night. On summer, temperature reaches as high as 40 °C and gradually drops to 30 °C as the nighttime comes. Rain visits the city in small amounts and usually during December. There were also occurrences of hail that were recorded and heavy thunderstorms also mark their winter season.