The Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, is the largest continuous sand desert on earth, and its western edge is now a World Heritage Site.
'Uruq Bani Ma'arid was inscribed in 2023 as Saudi Arabia's first natural World Heritage property. It covers the meeting point of the sand sea and the Tuwaiq escarpment, and it is where the Arabian oryx was returned to the wild after going extinct outside captivity. Sand gazelle and mountain gazelle are there too.
The dunes themselves run to enormous scale, and there is genuinely nothing in them. This is the emptiest landscape in the country and it is visited as an expedition, not an excursion.
Getting there and when to go
Access to the protected area is regulated and is not somewhere to drive into unaccompanied. Trips run from Riyadh or from the south.
What is here
What the tourism authority says
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