| Established | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Research type | Satellite ground station |
| Location | Makkah Region, Saudi Arabia 21°23′50.30″N39°22′59.00″E / 21.3973056°N 39.3830556°E Coordinates: 21°23′50.30″N39°22′59.00″E / 21.3973056°N 39.3830556°E |
Operating agency | Arab Satellite Communications Organization |
The King Fahd Satellite Telecommunications City is a satellite communications facility located between Mecca and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The facility is the control center for the Arab Satellite Communications Organization, one of the largest SATCOM operators in the Middle East/North Africa region. [1] Named after King Fahd who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1962 to 2005, the facility was established in 1988 and consists of four ground stations. [2] [3] It is situated right off the Mecca-Jeddah Road. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Mecca, also spelled Makkah, is a city in the Hejazi region of the Arabian Peninsula, and the plain of Tihamah in Saudi Arabia, and is also the capital and administrative headquarters of the Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level, and 340 kilometres (210 mi) south of Medina. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the Ḥajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah.
Jeddah is a city in the Tihamah region of the Hejaz on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest seaport on the Red Sea, and with a population of about four million people, the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. Jeddah is Saudi Arabia's commercial capital.
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a country in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the largest sovereign state in the Middle East, the second-largest in the Arab world, the fifth-largest in Asia, and the 12th-largest in the world. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south; it is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland and mountains. As of October 2018, the Saudi economy was the largest in the Middle East and the 18th largest in the world. Saudi Arabia also enjoys one of the world's youngest populations; 50% of its 33.4 million people are under 25 years old.
