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Hofuf

Found in: Cities towns and villages in Saudi Arabia


Al-Hofuf also Hofuf or Al-Hufuf is the major urban center in the huge Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Overview

The city proper has a population of 287,841 (2004 census} and is part of a larger populated oasis area of towns and villages of around 600,000. It is located inland, southwest of Abqaiq and the Dhahran-Dammam-Al-Khobar metropolitan area on the road south to Haradh. It is the closest city to the famous Ghawar oil field, one of the world's largest conventional (land-based) fields.

Hofuf is one of the major cultural centers in Saudi Arabia. A lot of well known families live there. The faculties of agriculture, veterinary medicine and animal resources for King Faisal University are located in the city (the others being in Dammam). The Hofuf campus also has facilities where Saudi women can study medicine, dentistry and home economics.

Legend places this as the burial place of Laila and Majnoon, the star-crossed pair of the most popular love story in the Arab and Muslim world. The Queen of Sheba is also fabled to have visited this city from her kingdom in Yemen.

Transport

The town has a railway junction where the direct line from the Gulf to the capital splits from the indirect line.

See also

an aerial map showing the location of Al-Hofuf in relation to other towns in the oasis

Al-Ahsa - or Al-Hasa - Oasis

External links

Hofuf on www.The-Saudi.net

References

FallingRain Map - elevation = 164m

Shiaa in Hufuf are more numerous than Sunni.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hofuf