Travel Guide Dammam

Dammam is the fifth largest city in the country and the capital of the Eastern Province. It has a population of 1,250,000 and is growing at a rapid rate of 12% per year. In 1923, it was just a small fishing village. Today, it is a dynamic city, which, although it draws most of its resources from oil, has developed a real industrial fabric. The city has the largest Shiite community in the country, with 20 to 25% of the population following this current of Islam. But the community has only one mosque, the Imam Husayn mosque, and it is not allowed to celebrate Ashura, one of the biggest Shiite celebrations. Indeed, Sunni Saudi Arabia, which if it tolerates the Shiite current of Islam, sees it with a bad eye. Shiite Muslims in the country are subject to recurrent discrimination (for more information, see the "Religion" section of this guide). Dammam, together with the city of Al-Khobar to the southeast, forms a vast metropolis with small, neatly lined buildings. The city is open to the Persian Gulf and is also the second largest port in the country. The Vision 2030 project aims to transform the city into a leisure destination. For the time being, Dammam has a beautiful museum, certainly the most beautiful in the country, the Ithra Museum, a futuristic building erected on the site of the first oil field discovered in the country. A bridge connects the small island state of Bahrain to Al-Khobar, which can be an opportunity for a day trip.