Dammam

Dammam was a small fishing and pearling settlement on a shallow Gulf bay for most of its history, overshadowed by the older centres of Qatif to the north and the oasis of al-Hasa inland. Tarout, just offshore, had been inhabited for thousands of years, and the coast lay within the trading world that ran from Dilmun to Basra. The modern town dates from about 1923, when members of the Dawasir tribe settled the fishing hamlet with the permission of Ibn Saud.

Everything changed in 1938, when American geologists working for the company that became Saudi Arabia's national oil concern struck oil in commercial quantities at a well in the Dammam dome, near Dhahran. The discovery turned a village into the administrative and logistical centre of an oil province: a deep-water port was built, the railway to Riyadh was completed in the early 1950s, and Dammam was made the capital of the Eastern Province. Dhahran grew beside it as a company town, and Al Khobar developed as its commercial twin.

Growth since has been continuous and fast. Migrants came from across the kingdom and from South Asia, Egypt, the Philippines and elsewhere; the city spread inland with planned districts, industrial cities and universities; and the causeway to Bahrain, opened in 1986, tied it to its neighbour. The corniche was built out along the reclaimed shore, and by the 2020s Dammam had become one of the country's largest urban areas, governing a province whose oil output remains central to the world energy market.

Dammam belongs as much to the Gulf as to Arabia. Its older culture is maritime — pearling songs, dhow building, drumming rhythms shared with Bahrain and Kuwait, and a dialect closer to the Gulf than to the Hejaz — and Bahrain, half an hour across the causeway, has long been a weekend destination and a cultural neighbour. Family visiting, long evenings outdoors in winter and picnics on the beach are the standard forms of leisure.

The province is religiously more varied than most of the kingdom. Alongside the Sunni majority it holds most of Saudi Arabia's Twelver Shia citizens, concentrated in Qatif and Al-Ahsa, where Ashura is observed with processions and gatherings and communities keep their own mosques and halls. The province's history includes periods of tension between these communities and the state, which residents discuss cautiously.

Oil has shaped social life too. Generations grew up in or beside Aramco compounds and schools, and the company's technical culture, its university in Dhahran and the Ithra cultural centre have made the area a hub of engineering education and, more recently, of exhibitions, film and the arts. The population is strikingly international: a large part of it is non-Saudi, and Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog and Arabic dialects from across the region are heard in the markets. The social changes of recent years — mixed cafés, cinemas, concerts, women driving — arrived here quickly, though the city remains conservative in dress and manner.

About 1.4 million people live in Dammam itself, and the continuous Dammam–Khobar–Dhahran area holds well over two million, making it the largest urban region in the east of the country. A large share of residents are foreign workers, many of them long resident, from South Asia, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan and elsewhere.

Oil and its industries underpin the economy, directly and indirectly: Aramco is headquartered in neighbouring Dhahran, the port of Dammam is the kingdom's main Gulf harbour, and refineries, petrochemical plants and the industrial cities to the north employ large numbers. Around them sit government, health care, universities, construction, logistics and a big retail and restaurant sector. Fishing continues at Qatif and along the coast, and farming persists in the oases inland.

The daily rhythm is set by heat, work and prayer. Offices run from early morning, shops shut briefly at each prayer time, the afternoon is spent indoors in air conditioning, and the corniche, parks and malls fill after sunset and stay busy late. Weekends bring beach picnics, desert trips in winter and, for many families, the drive over the causeway to Bahrain. Housing is mostly villas and apartment blocks in planned districts, and almost every household depends on a car. Residents' concerns are jobs for young Saudis, housing costs, traffic and the summer climate.

Eastern Province cooking is Gulf cooking. Machboos, rice cooked with meat, chicken or fish and a warm spice mix including dried lime, is the regional version of kabsa, and muhammar, rice sweetened with date molasses, is eaten with fried fish. The Gulf supplies hamour, a grouper, along with other fish and shrimp, grilled, fried or stewed and served with rice, and the fish markets at Dammam and Qatif are where the day's catch is chosen.

The oasis inland provides the other staples: khalas dates from Al-Ahsa, widely grown in eastern Arabia, and Hasawi rice, a reddish local grain. Breakfast in the Gulf style may be balaleet, sweet vermicelli with saffron and cardamom topped with an omelette, or foul and fresh bread; harees, wheat and meat pounded to a thick porridge, is made during Ramadan and for celebrations, when it is shared between households.

Migration has made the city's everyday food international. Biryani, karak tea and Kerala dishes are as common as Arab ones, Levantine grills, hummus and shawarma are everywhere, and Filipino canteens serve the communities that have worked here for decades. Drinks are non-alcoholic, alcohol being illegal in the kingdom: Arabic coffee scented with cardamom and served with dates, sweet black tea, fresh juices and, increasingly, speciality coffee from a large café scene across Dammam and Al Khobar.