Saudi Arabia Regions

Saudi Arabia is the biggest country on the Arabian Peninsula and its regions are cut to match: a few enormous desert blocks in the middle and the north, and a handful of small, crowded ones along the Red Sea mountains in the south-west. They are the tier above the governorates, and the right first step before the governorates inside them.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Part of the country: Central, North, West, South and East
In the game: 13 regions

Start

What you are looking at

The manatiq, the first level of government. The Eastern Province is the largest by a wide margin and holds the Gulf coast and most of the Empty Quarter. Riyadh is the middle of the country and surrounds the capital. Makkah and Al Madinah hold the two holy cities and the Red Sea coast between them.

The regions are the governorates of Saudi Arabia Governorates dissolved, so the borders of the two maps match exactly.

The groups are the five parts the country is usually taught in: the central Najd, the north on the Jordanian and Iraqi borders, the Red Sea west, the south, and the Eastern Province on its own.

How to place one

Start with Riyadh. It sits in the middle of the peninsula, and the central regions are placed by which side of it they are on.
Hug the Red Sea. Tabuk, Al Madinah, Makkah, Al Bahah, Asir and Jazan follow the western coast from north to south.
Learn the small southern ones. Al Bahah, Asir, Jazan and Najran are packed together at the Yemen border, and are the ones people mix up.
Finish on the borders. Northern Borders and Al Jawf run along Iraq and Jordan, with Ha'il and Al-Qassim below them.

Every region, by part of the country

Central3 regions: Al-Qassim, Ha'il, Riyadh
West2 regions: Al Madinah, Makkah
North3 regions: Al Jawf, Northern Borders, Tabuk
South4 regions: Al Bahah, Asir, Jazan, Najran
East1 region: Eastern Province

Worked examples

Riyadh

The capital

Riyadh is the region around the capital, in the middle of the peninsula. Al-Qassim is to the north, the Eastern Province to the east, and Makkah and Najran to the west and south.

Eastern Province

The biggest of them

The Eastern Province is the largest region, running from the Gulf coast and the Bahrain causeway across the Empty Quarter to the borders of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Al Bahah

The small one in the south-west

Al Bahah is the smallest region, a strip of mountains and coastal plain between Makkah and Asir. It is easy to miss because the regions around it are so much larger.

Frequently asked questions

How many regions does Saudi Arabia have?

13. Al Bahah, Al Jawf, Al Madinah, Al-Qassim, Asir, the Eastern Province, Ha'il, Jazan, Makkah, Najran, the Northern Borders, Riyadh and Tabuk.

What are the groups in this quiz?

Five parts of the country: Central, North, West, South and East. They are a teaching convention rather than an administrative level, and the Eastern Province is a part of its own.

Why do the regions have different spellings elsewhere?

Arabic names have no single English spelling. The quiz keeps the transliteration of its boundary data, with Ha'il, Asir and the Eastern Province written the way most maps print them.

The tier below this one is Saudi Arabia Governorates. For another Asian country at this level, see Jordan Governorates.