Al-Qasab Salt Season

Al-Qasab Salt Season is an event held by Riyadh Province Municipality, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on March 2, 2023. It was held over ten days and featured cultural, artistic, and entertaining events, in addition to its main pavilion, al-Qasab Salt, which showcased the history of the province and its relationship with salt for more than three centuries.

The area of al-Qasab, located northwest of the capital, Riyadh, has been renowned for its salt production for centuries. Its salt is of the best quality in the salt market. It was selected due to its historical correlation with this production. The region was known for being a main source of salt for the local and foreign communities, where its production is the main profession for its inhabitants. The events featured a corner that showcased a salt pan model to explain to visitors the stage of producing salt, the steps that are executed until it reaches consumers, and how the region excelled in this activity, at the expense of herding and agriculture, where it was ultimately known as al-Dhahab al-Abyad (white gold) region.

Visitors stopped by the shops of the people of al-Qasab, who showcased their various products formed of salt. They also assisted in a range of entertainment activities such as horseback archery, radio-controlled aircraft, classic cars, peg picking, and a surreal art exhibition.

Al-Qasab pans, also known as "Jafar al-Milh" in Saudi Arabia, were known for producing the best quality of multi-purpose pure natural salt whose quality surpasses that of marine salt and which production covers one-third of Saudi Arabia's consumption of kosher salt. "Jafar al-Milh" is a historical town affiliated with the governorate of Shaqra. It is located about 150 km west of Riyadh. Salt was extracted in a primitive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive way, by pulling it out of a "jafara" which is a large, wide pit.

The salt industry became an industrial activity after one of the region's merchants, Fayez al-Humaidi, opened the first advanced factory to extract salt and process it via purification, refining, and packaging, upon using advanced technology, turning the region into the fastest salt-producing region after the activity was primitive and slow.