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Al-Ula
Also known as Al-`Ula, al-‘Ulā, al-‘Ula
al-Ula (), officially AlUla, is an ancient Arabian oasis city and governorate located in Medina Province, Saudi Arabia, northwest of the city of Medina. Situated in the Hejaz, a region that features prominently in the history of Islam as well as several pre-Islamic Semitic civilizations, al-Ula was a market city on the historic incense trade route that linked India and the Persian Gulf to the Levant and Europe.
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Place details
- Region
- منطقة المدينة المنورة
- Country
- السعودية
- Population
- 32,413
- Timezone
- Asia/Riyadh
via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames
Key facts
Travel guide
Understand
Al-Ula is an ancient oasis town at the northern tip of the Hejaz, best known for its many Nabatean historical sites, most notably the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hegra (Madain Saleh), a rock-hewn city built by the same civilization as Jordan's Petra.
Long obscure, in 2017 the Saudi government set up a Royal Commission with the stated aim of turning Al-Ula into a world-class tourist attraction. Investment since has been fast and furious, with the airport now fielding direct international flights and a cluster of 10 luxury hotels springing up. Get there before the world finds out about it!
Get around
Uber and Careem are available. Don't count on being able to grab one at Al-Ula International Airport though.
See
Most visitors come to Al-Ula to see Hegra (Madain Saleh), 22 km away and covered in a separate article.
Eat
Most of the upper-class hotels in the region have their own exquisite in-house restaurants. Alternatively you can also look for rather tourist-oriented (and accordingly expensive) restaurants and cafés in the Old Town.
If you have your own means of transport or if you are staying there in the first place, you could visit the more local and cheaper restaurants in the New Town (2 km south of the Old Town), where all the regular locals go eat. There is a wide selection of Western-style fast food, Arabian-style rice dishes, Shawarma and Kebab, Yemeni cuisine and other restaurants.
Sleep
A cluster of 10 ultra-luxury hotels between the city and Hegra is in various stages of completion. Rates are very seasonal: during the winter peak you can expect to pay north of US$1000/night, but in midsummer the same hotel will go for $300.
Travel guide from Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 4.0)
~20 min read
Article
26 sectionsContents
- Landscape
- History
- Prehistory
- Pre-Islamic times
- Medieval Islamic times
- Modern times
- Timeline
- Archaeological investigations
- Rock art
- Administration
- Heritage Village
- Royal Commission for al-Ula
- Development plan
- al-Ula International Airport
- Tourism
- Accommodation in al-Ula
- "Winter at Tantora" festival
- Azimuth Festival
- Persian Night in Saudi Arabia's al-Ula
- al-Ula Vision
- Climate
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
al-Ula (), officially AlUla, is an ancient Arabian oasis city and governorate located in Medina Province, Saudi Arabia, northwest of the city of Medina. Situated in the Hejaz, a region that features prominently in the history of Islam as well as several pre-Islamic Semitic civilizations, al-Ula was a market city on the historic incense trade route that linked India and the Persian Gulf to the Levant and Europe.
From an archaeological perspective, the immediate vicinity contains a unique concentration of precious artifacts, including well-preserved ancient stone inscriptions that illustrate the development of the Arabic language, and a concentration of rock dwellings and tombs that date from the Nabatean and Dedanite periods that coincided with Greco-Roman influence during classical antiquity. Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra (also known as al-Hijr, or Mada'in Ṣalih), is located north of the city, in al-Ula governorate. Built more than 2,000 years ago by the Nabataeans, Hegra is often compared with its sister city of Petra, in Jordan. Meanwhile, the ancient walled oasis city of al-Ula, locally known as al-Dirah, situated near the oasis's palm grove that allowed for its settlement, contains a dense cluster of mudbrick and stone houses. al-Ula was also the capital of the ancient Lihyanites (Dedanites).