Sa'udi Arabia - Libraries and museums



The King Fahd National Library, founded in Riyadh in 1968, has 462,000 volumes. The largest library system is that of King Sa'ud University established in 1957, with 14 branches and a collection of more than 1.8 million volumes; the library at King 'Abd al-'Aziz University has 560,000 volumes. The library of the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, with almost 335,000 volumes, is the nation's largest specialized collection. The largest public library, at Riyadh, contains 275,000 volumes.

There are 10,150 documented monuments and about a dozen museums in Sa'udi Arabia. The National Museum, originally opened at Riyadh in 1978, focuses on archaeology and ethnography. Major renovations were completed in 1999. Many of the other historic and cultural sites are religious in nature and the high figures for attendance reflect the huge numbers of Muslim pilgrims who visit the kingdom each year. Riyadh is also home to a local museum, an archaeological museum at King Sa'ud University, and a geological museum.

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