Al-Ula

al-Ula (Arabic: ٱلْعُلَا, romanized: al-ʿUlā), officially AlUla, is an ancient Arabian oasis city and governorate located in Medina Province, Saudi Arabia, 350 kilometres (220 miles) northwest of the city of Medina. Situated in the Hejaz, a region that features prominently in the history of Islam as well as several pre-Islamic Semitic civilizations, al-Ula was a market city on the historic Incense trade route that linked India and the Persian Gulf to the Levant and Europe.

From an archaeological perspective, the immediate vicinity contains a unique concentration of precious artifacts, including well-preserved ancient stone inscriptions that illustrate the development of the Arabic language, and a concentration of rock dwellings and tombs that date from the Nabatean and Dedanite periods that coincided with Greco-Roman influence during classical antiquity. Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra (also known as al-Hijr, or Mada'in Ṣalih), is located 22 km (14 miles) north of the city, in al-Ula governorate. Built more than 2,000 years ago by the Nabataeans, Hegra is often compared with its sister city of Petra, in Jordan. Meanwhile, the ancient walled oasis city of al-Ula, locally known as al-Dirah, situated near the oasis's palm grove that allowed for its settlement, contains a dense cluster of mudbrick and stone houses. al-Ula was also the capital of the ancient Lihyanites (Dedanites).

The Jabal Ikmah epigraphs and petroglyphs are located in the mountains around AlUla. In 2023, they have been inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. Dating back to the second half of the first millennium BCE, they played a significant role in the evolution of Old Arabic languages and dialects. Carved in sandstone, these nearly 300 inscriptions are written in the pre-Nabataean Arabic languages Aramaic, Dadanitic, Thamudic, and Minaic.

Today, the city of al-Ula is within the Governorate of al-Ula, one of seven constituent counties of Medina province. The city is located 110 km (68 miles) southwest of Tayma and 300 km (190 miles) north of Medina. The city (municipality) covers 2,391 square kilometres (923 sq mi), and has a population of 60,103 as of 2022. In addition to the ancient old town al-Dīrah, a more recent historical and adjacent settlement, al-Judaydah, displaying the settlement patterns of Arabic-Islamic urbanism, remains occupied and is currently experiencing a redesign. Since the 1980s, the oasis of al-Ula has experienced significant agricultural and urban growth. Since then, the settled Bedouins have been added to the population of Sedentary people and, as in the rest of the kingdom, a large population of immigrant workers.

The area is also known for its striking landscape of rocks, canyons, and wadis, and the contrast between these dry surroundings and the lush, palm-filled oases near the city's centre. The oasis of al-Ula was once a key stop on the Hejaz Railway, linking Damascus to Medina.