Jazan Province

Jazan Province, one of the thirteen administrative regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is located in the southwestern part of the Kingdom. The Red Sea delineates its western border. The province represents the Kingdom's meeting point with the Red Sea and the Republic of Yemen. The province is bordered from the north and east by Aseer Province and from the south and southeast by the Republic of Yemen. Its seafront areas are the terminus of the Kingdom's coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, 260 km long, of which 180 km lie on the Gulf of Aqaba.

It is the Kingdom's second-smallest province, the sixth-most populous, and is also one of seven provinces in the Kingdom with a population exceeding the one million mark. Jazan has 1,404,997 inhabitants, equivalent to 4.4 percent of the Kingdom's population. According to the official statistics of the 2022 Saudi Census, the province occupies an area of 13,000 km, covering 0.7 percent of the Kingdom's total area. It has a population density of 108 people per km of its territory. The governorates of Sabya, Abu Arish, and Samtah are the province's population centers. Residents can reach Jazan City by car in thirty to forty minutes.

Sixteen governorates fall under Jazan Province’s geographical and administrative scope: Jazan, the headquarters of the emirate and the administrative capital; Sabya; Abu Arish; Samtah; al-Horrath; Damad; al-Rayth; Baish; Farasan; al-Dayer; Ahad al-Masarihah; al-Edabi; al-Ardah; al-Darb; Harub; Fayfa; and at-Tuwal, in addition to forty-one centers. Since 2001, the province’s governor has been Prince Mohammed Bin Nasser Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and his deputy, Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Bin Mohammed Al Saud, was appointed on April 22, 2017.

Qandal Forest in Jazan Province. (Saudipedia)

The province is characterized by its diverse terrain comprised of mountains, flatlands, and islands, and 48.93 percent of the population lives on islands and coastal plains. Jazan is one of the most geographically diverse provinces in the Kingdom. Its western part oversees the Red Sea, and inhabited islands make up 5.35 percent of its territory, such as the islands of Farasan al-Kabir, Sajid, and Qamah, which comprise the Farasan Islands, a part of an archipelago known as 'Farasan Islands', with an estimated two hundred islands of different sizes that represent 15.6 percent of the total number of islands in the Kingdom, that is 1,285 islands.

The inner highlands are ideal environments for different types of agriculture. At an altitude of more than 2,632 m, Jabal al-Oraif (northeast of Fayfa) stands as the highest mountaintop in the province and the tenth highest in the Kingdom, after the nine peaks of Aseer Mountains.

Jazan Province's climate is impacted by tropical winds, and the weather is generally very hot in summer and mild in winter, except for the mountain highlands, where temperatures are moderate and there is rainfall throughout the year.

Agriculture and fishing are the two major pillars of the province's economy, accounting for 40 percent of the Kingdom's fish production, with 154,876 agricultural holdings in the Kingdom. After Aseer, Jazan Province comes in second in the number of agricultural holdings and is one of five provinces in the Kingdom classified as agricultural areas.

Jazan Province has thirteen water dams and is one of three provinces in the Kingdom that benefit the most from dam water. Dams in Jazan provide a high storage capacity of 313.440 million m of water. The average per capita share of drinking water is estimated at seventy-six liters per day.

The southwestern part of Jazan Province is a business arena and investment attraction, located on an area of 106 km. The main attractions are: Jazan City for Basic and Transformation Industries, seventy km north of Jazan City and twenty km west of Baish Governorate, which has its own industrial port located on one of the world's most important shipping lanes, through which 13 to 15 percent of global trade passes. It is also one of the largest ports in the Kingdom on the Red Sea coast in terms of design capacity and the main gateway for the Kingdom's imports and exports to the Horn of Africa. Jazan is also home to the Jazan Refinery, with a production capacity of four hundred thousand barrels per day. The province includes King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Airport, located over an area of 50,134,155 m, three km from the center of the administrative capital Jazan, with a capacity of up to nine hundred thousand passengers per year.

Highlands are one of the largest economic drivers in the province; they are home to coffee cultivation in the Kingdom and are the world's largest and oldest exporter of Arabic coffee. Agriculture in Jazan Province employs 20 percent of the total workforce in the province, and 1.6 percent of its land is earmarked for growing coffee (400,000 trees). Jazan Province produces 360 t of coffee crops annually, whose quality varies from 83 to 90 percent. The province's main agricultural crops include vegetables, fruits, field crops, ornamental trees like jasmine and kadi (Pandanus tectorius), and varied aromatic plants. The province is also famous for producing honey.

Al-Dosariyah Castle, located over a mountaintop in Jazan. (Saudipedia)

There is one public university in Jazan Province, located in the administrative capital of Jazan and bearing its name. It was founded in 2005, and its branches are distributed at close distances from all governorates. In addition, more than 1,363 schools serve the province at various levels of general education; primary, middle school, and secondary, enrolling more than 190,268 male and female students.

Jazan Province has a variety of tourist attractions, as well as environmental and historical sites, including al-Marjan Island, Jazan Heritage Village, Jazan Valley Dam Lake, al-Najdi Mosque and Palace in Farasan, al-Dosariyah Castle, and Wadi Lajab, in addition to the province's mountain highlands.