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Mecca Province is a region in Saudi Arabia that is home to the city of Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. It matters because millions of Muslims from around the world travel there each year to perform the Hajj pilgrimage, one of Islam's five fundamental religious obligations.
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Mecca Province (Arabic: مِنْطَقَة مَكَّة, romanized: Minṭaqat Makka, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈmin.tˤa.qat ˈmak.ka]), officially Makkah Province, is one of the 13 provinces of Saudi Arabia. It is the third-largest province by area at 153,128 km (59,123 sq mi) 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. Most of the population is concentrated in three cities: Jeddah, Mecca and Taif. Jeddah is the largest city in the province and the second-largest in Saudi Arabia with an estimated population of 2,867,446 as of 2020. Mecca is the second-largest city in the province and third-largest in the kingdom at 1,323,624. After the city of Ta'if at third place, Rabigh, Shafa, Turbah and Jumum are other populous cities and towns in the region. The region receives Muslim pilgrims of the Umrah and the Hajj around the year and its population increases by up to 2 million during the Hajj. It has approximately 700 kilometres (430 mi) of coastline on the Red Sea and hosts oil refineries in Rabigh, port and oil export facilities in Jeddah, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and the King Abdullah Economic City. The province also hosts part of the Haramain High Speed Railway line, which is Saudi Arabia's first and only high-speed railway line.