Aqabat Shaar is the third-longest mountain road in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is located in Aseer Province and connects the city of Abha to the governorate of Muhayil Aseer. The length of its road is 14.2 km, and it includes eleven tunnels.
Aqabat Shaar designation
The Arabic linguistic origin of the word Shaar indicates a marker or separation boundary and is also associated with the Shaar Castle located in the region – a fitting military name in military custom to identify the location of military forts.
All mountain roads (Aqabat) sites in the Kingdom have a harsh and rugged mountainous nature. Therefore, they become dangerous during rainfall, especially after the flow of flash floods due to frequent rock slides. This necessitated their precise engineering design to ensure safety along the roads on which they are implemented.
The Ministry of Transport in the Kingdom conducted its engineering studies for road construction in challenging terrains in 1970. The implementation of mountain roads projects in the Kingdom began in the year 1977, which included Aqabat Shaar.
Aqabat Shaar road specifications
The Aqabat Shaar Road is an engineering marvel; it contains 351 culverts, thirty-two bridges with a length of 3,211 m, and an average pillar height of sixty-five m. Like other Aqabat projects, Aqabat Shaar connects areas south and southwest of the Kingdom to its north, by linking the Taif - Abha - Jazan Road with the Makkah al-Mukarramah - Darb - Jazan Road, which ties the north of the Kingdom with its southwest. The seventy-five km Aqabat Shaar road descends from Muhayil Aseer to al-Majaridah.
Importance of Aqabat Shaar
Aqabat roads have brought a lot of benefits in terms of development and helped shorten distances between regions and cities. Therefore, the implementation of Aqabat Shaar came from a strategic developmental perspective to serve those regions by mitigating car, truck, and heavy goods vehicle traffic on Road 54 from Taif to Abha and Najran. This prolonged the road's estimated lifetime and facilitated access to the Coastal Road via Aqabat Shaar to Abha and Najran – cutting the distance by 150 km, and reducing costs for citizens, the state, and trade movement between cities in southern regions.
The Aqabat Shaar project improved the flexibility of road traffic in the mountains of Aseer Province, linking it to other vital roads across the Red Sea coast. The 775 km Taif - Abha - Jazan Road passes through Aqabat Shaar, thereby enhancing its benefits regarding development in these areas.
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