King Salman Park: Riyadh’s 13.4 Square Kilometer Urban Oasis

In a city defined by its vast horizontal spread, its car-centric infrastructure, and its arid desert climate, King Salman Park represents something close to a revolution. Spanning 13.4 square kilometers on the site of the former Riyadh Air Base in the heart of the capital, the park is not merely a green space but a reimagining of what Riyadh can be. Where military runways once stretched across cracked tarmac, forests of native trees are taking root. Where hangars housed aircraft, the Royal Arts Complex is rising to house galleries, theatres, and performance spaces. Where perimeter fencing separated the base from the surrounding neighborhoods, a new urban park is stitching the city back together.

King Salman Park is the largest urban park under development anywhere in the world. At 13.4 square kilometers, it dwarfs Central Park in New York (3.4 square kilometers), Hyde Park in London (1.4 square kilometers), and even the Bois de Boulogne in Paris (8.5 square kilometers). The scale reflects both the ambition of Vision 2030 and the practical reality that Riyadh — a city of over eight million people with minimal public green space — needs a transformative intervention to become the livable, attractive metropolis that its leadership envisions.

This is the story of how a decommissioned military base is becoming the green heart of one of the world’s fastest-growing cities.

The Site: From Air Base to Urban Park

The selection of the former Riyadh Air Base as the site for King Salman Park was a decision that combined pragmatism with symbolism. Pragmatically, the air base offered a vast, contiguous tract of land in central Riyadh that was already government-owned and could be repurposed without the complex land acquisition processes that would be required for any other site of comparable scale. The base’s location, surrounded by established residential and commercial neighborhoods, meant that the park would be accessible to millions of residents rather than isolated on the city’s periphery.

Symbolically, the conversion of a military installation into a public park and cultural destination reflected the broader transformation that Vision 2030 represents. Saudi Arabia, historically defined by its security posture and military alliances, was redirecting resources and attention toward quality of life, culture, and the well-being of its citizens. The air base to park transformation was a physical metaphor for this shift.

The site’s aviation history presented both challenges and opportunities for the park designers. The flat, open terrain that was ideal for runways also provided a blank canvas for landscape design. The existing infrastructure — roads, utilities, and structures — could be selectively repurposed or removed. The runway alignments, which cut straight lines across the site, offered the potential for grand axial views and processional routes within the park design.

The soil conditions, however, presented challenges. The compacted surfaces of runways and taxiways, contamination from aviation fuels and lubricants, and the absence of organic topsoil meant that the site required extensive remediation and soil preparation before planting could begin. The transformation from a paved military installation to a thriving landscape required the importation of thousands of tons of topsoil, the installation of irrigation systems, and the careful selection of plant species adapted to the harsh Riyadh climate.

The Park Design

The masterplan for King Salman Park was developed by international design firms working in collaboration with Saudi counterparts, producing a design that balances global best practices in park design with specific responses to Riyadh’s climate, culture, and urban context.

The park is organized around a series of distinct zones, each serving different functions and offering different experiences. Active recreation zones include sports fields, running tracks, cycling paths, and fitness areas. Passive recreation zones feature gardens, walking paths, water features, and shaded seating areas. Cultural zones house the Royal Arts Complex and associated venues. Ecological zones prioritize native planting and habitat creation.

The landscape design draws heavily on the concept of the traditional Arabian garden — the rawdah — which uses water, shade, and carefully selected plantings to create oases of comfort in an arid landscape. Water features throughout the park provide visual and auditory relief from the surrounding urban environment, while also serving practical cooling functions through evaporative effects.

Tree planting is a central element of the design, with thousands of trees selected for their ability to thrive in Riyadh’s climate while providing maximum shade and cooling benefit. Native species including Prosopis, Acacia, and Ziziphus are supplemented by adapted species that can tolerate the extreme heat and limited rainfall. The tree canopy, as it matures over the coming decades, will create microclimates within the park that are significantly cooler than the surrounding urban areas.

The park design also addresses Riyadh’s extreme climate through architectural and engineering interventions. Shading structures, both permanent and deployable, provide protection from direct sun across public spaces. Misting systems reduce ambient temperatures in gathering areas. Water features and irrigated landscapes create evaporative cooling zones. And the orientation and spacing of buildings and structures are designed to channel prevailing breezes through the park.

The Royal Arts Complex

The Royal Arts Complex is King Salman Park’s signature cultural facility and one of the most significant cultural infrastructure investments in Saudi Arabia’s history. The complex brings together multiple arts and cultural institutions in a single precinct, creating a cultural destination of regional and potentially international significance.

The complex includes dedicated venues for visual arts, performing arts, and film. Gallery spaces are designed to accommodate exhibitions ranging from historic Saudi art to contemporary international work, with climate-controlled environments that meet international standards for art preservation and display. The galleries are designed with the flexibility to host installations of varying scales, from intimate single-artist shows to large-scale survey exhibitions.

The performing arts venues within the complex include theatres of various sizes, from an intimate black box space suitable for experimental performance to a large concert hall capable of hosting symphony orchestras and major productions. The acoustic design of these venues has been developed by leading international consultants, ensuring that the performance spaces meet the technical standards expected by international artists and audiences.

The IMAX theatre is designed to offer both commercial entertainment and educational programming. The large-format screen and immersive sound system provide an experience that cannot be replicated in conventional cinemas, while the programming strategy includes nature documentaries, science films, and cultural content alongside commercial releases. In a city where commercial cinemas were not permitted until 2018, the IMAX theatre represents the maturation of Saudi Arabia’s entertainment infrastructure.

Film production and screening facilities within the complex support Saudi Arabia’s growing film industry. The kingdom has invested in developing a domestic film sector through training programs, production grants, and the establishment of film commissions. The Royal Arts Complex provides production-quality facilities that support this nascent industry while also serving as a venue for film festivals and screenings.

The architectural design of the Royal Arts Complex is intended to create a landmark that is recognizable and iconic while also being sympathetic to the park setting. The buildings are designed to complement rather than dominate the landscape, with materials, forms, and scales that create a dialogue between architecture and nature. The cultural precinct is connected to the broader park by pedestrian paths, landscaped corridors, and sightlines that draw visitors between the indoor cultural experiences and the outdoor park environment.

Sports and Recreation Facilities

King Salman Park’s sports and recreation facilities address a genuine deficit in Riyadh’s public infrastructure. Despite its wealth and rapid development, Riyadh has historically lacked the public sports facilities that residents of other major cities take for granted. Private health clubs and sports complexes serve the affluent, but accessible public recreation has been limited.

The park includes facilities for a range of sports, from formal playing fields for football, cricket, and other team sports to informal recreation areas for jogging, cycling, and fitness activities. The sports facilities are designed to serve both organized competitions and casual recreation, with scheduling and management systems that maximize utilization across different user groups.

Cycling infrastructure within the park includes dedicated cycling paths that provide safe, pleasant routes separate from pedestrian traffic and motor vehicles. The cycling network connects to broader cycling infrastructure being developed across Riyadh, including connections to the Sports Boulevard project that is creating a 135-kilometer cycling and recreation corridor across the city.

Running and walking paths wind through the park, offering routes of various distances and difficulty levels. The paths are designed with consideration for the climate, routing through shaded areas where possible and providing rest stops with water, shade, and seating at regular intervals. Evening lighting allows use during the cooler nighttime hours, which are the preferred time for outdoor exercise during Riyadh’s hot months.

Children’s play areas are distributed throughout the park, ensuring that families with young children have accessible recreation options regardless of which part of the park they visit. The play areas are designed with both safety and engagement in mind, using contemporary playground design principles that encourage creative and physical play.

The sports facilities include training and competition venues that can host local, national, and potentially international sporting events. The integration of sports facilities within a park setting, rather than in isolated sports complexes, creates opportunities for spectators and participants to enjoy the broader park experience alongside their sporting activities.

Water Features and Landscape

Water is the most precious resource in Riyadh’s desert environment, and its use in King Salman Park is both a design statement and an engineering challenge. The park’s water features include fountains, streams, reflecting pools, and irrigated gardens that create the sensory experience of abundance in a landscape defined by scarcity.

The water management strategy for the park relies on recycled water, smart irrigation systems, and water-efficient landscape design to minimize consumption while maximizing visual and cooling impact. Treated wastewater is used for irrigation, reducing demand on the kingdom’s desalination capacity. Smart irrigation systems use soil moisture sensors, weather data, and plant-specific watering schedules to deliver precisely the amount of water needed, avoiding the waste associated with conventional irrigation.

The plant palette has been selected with water efficiency as a primary criterion. Native and adapted species that thrive in arid conditions form the backbone of the planting scheme, supplemented by more water-intensive species in limited areas where the visual impact justifies the resource cost. The overall water budget for the park has been designed to be significantly lower per square meter than comparable parks in temperate climates while still creating a lush, green environment.

The landscape design also incorporates stormwater management features that capture and utilize the infrequent but intense rainfall events that characterize Riyadh’s climate. Rain gardens, permeable surfaces, and detention basins collect stormwater, reducing runoff and allowing water to infiltrate the soil and recharge the water table. These features are integrated into the landscape design so that they contribute to the park’s aesthetic while serving their hydrological function.

Connectivity and Access

King Salman Park’s location in central Riyadh gives it a connectivity advantage that purpose-built parks on urban peripheries cannot match. The park is accessible from surrounding neighborhoods on foot, by bicycle, and by public transit, reducing dependence on private vehicles and contributing to the pedestrian-friendly urban environment that Riyadh is working to create.

The Riyadh Metro provides high-capacity transit access to the park, with stations on multiple lines located within walking distance of park entrances. The Metro Line 7, which will eventually connect Diriyah Gate to Qiddiya, is planned to pass through or near the park, adding another transit connection. Bus routes also serve the park, and dedicated drop-off and pickup zones accommodate ride-sharing services.

Pedestrian access is facilitated by improved streetscapes and crossings at the park’s perimeter, addressing the historically hostile pedestrian environment of Riyadh’s major roads. New pedestrian bridges, at-grade crossings, and street-level improvements make it possible to walk to the park from surrounding neighborhoods safely and comfortably — a seemingly basic achievement that represents a significant change in Riyadh’s urban character.

The park’s internal circulation system prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists, with vehicular access limited to service vehicles and accessibility transport. The car-free environment within the park creates a pedestrian experience that is rare in Riyadh’s car-dominated landscape, offering residents a taste of the walkable urbanism that the city’s planners aspire to create more broadly.

Parking is provided at the park’s perimeter, with facilities designed to accommodate high visitation volumes during events and peak periods. The parking strategy encourages transit use through pricing and convenience — making it easy to reach the park by metro and bus while ensuring that those who drive can find parking without circulating through residential streets.

The Park as Climate Response

King Salman Park serves a climate function that extends beyond recreation and culture. The 13.4-square-kilometer green space, as its tree canopy matures, will create a measurable cooling effect in central Riyadh. Urban heat island research has consistently demonstrated that large green spaces reduce ambient temperatures in surrounding areas, with effects measurable at distances of hundreds of meters to kilometers from the park boundary.

Riyadh’s urban heat island effect is significant. The city’s extensive paved surfaces, minimal vegetation, and low building reflectance create temperatures that are several degrees higher than surrounding rural areas. This heat island increases energy demand for cooling, reduces outdoor comfort, degrades air quality, and contributes to heat-related health problems. King Salman Park’s tree canopy, irrigated landscapes, and water features will collectively reduce temperatures within and around the park, providing tangible quality of life benefits.

The park’s contribution to air quality is equally important. Trees and vegetation filter particulate matter and absorb gaseous pollutants, improving the air quality that park users and surrounding residents breathe. Riyadh’s air quality, affected by dust storms, vehicle emissions, and industrial activity, stands to benefit from the biological filtering capacity that 13.4 square kilometers of planted landscape provides.

The carbon sequestration potential of the park’s vegetation, while modest relative to the kingdom’s total emissions, contributes to Saudi Arabia’s climate commitments. The growing trees absorb carbon dioxide as they mature, with sequestration rates increasing as the tree canopy reaches its full extent over the coming decades. The park demonstrates that Saudi Arabia’s climate strategy includes nature-based solutions alongside the technological and industrial approaches that receive more attention.

Construction Progress and Timeline

Construction of King Salman Park is advancing through a phased approach that prioritizes infrastructure and landscape establishment before the completion of buildings and cultural facilities. The phasing reflects both practical construction sequencing and the recognition that trees and landscapes require years to mature, making early planting essential even if buildings are completed later.

The initial phases have focused on site remediation, infrastructure installation, and the beginning of landscape work. The removal of aviation infrastructure, soil remediation, and the installation of irrigation, drainage, and utility systems have created the foundation for the park’s development. Tree planting has begun, with young trees established in nurseries and transplanted to the park site according to the landscape design.

The Royal Arts Complex and other buildings are progressing through design development and construction, with completion targeted for the coming years. The construction approach integrates building development with landscape establishment, so that buildings are delivered into an increasingly mature park setting rather than surrounded by bare construction sites.

The phased timeline acknowledges that the full vision for King Salman Park will take years to realize. A park is not a building that is complete upon opening — it is a living system that develops, matures, and improves over decades. The tree canopy that will eventually provide the park’s defining character will take 15 to 20 years to reach full maturity. The landscape, the ecosystems, and the patterns of use will evolve over time.

This long-term perspective distinguishes King Salman Park from some of the more troubled giga-projects in Saudi Arabia’s portfolio. The park does not depend on unproven technology, speculative demand projections, or unprecedented engineering. It applies well-understood principles of park design and landscape architecture at ambitious scale, using mature construction techniques and proven plant materials. The ambition lies in the scale and the commitment to quality, not in the novelty of the concept.

Impact on Surrounding Neighborhoods

The development of King Salman Park is already affecting the neighborhoods that surround it. Real estate values in areas adjacent to the park are appreciating as the amenity value of proximity to a world-class green space is anticipated and then realized. This appreciation creates wealth for existing property owners while also raising concerns about affordability for lower-income residents.

The park’s development is catalyzing private investment in surrounding areas. Restaurants, cafes, retail establishments, and hospitality properties are being developed to serve park visitors, creating commercial activity that supports employment and tax revenue. The transformation of a military base — which contributed nothing to the surrounding urban fabric and in fact created a barrier within it — into a park that generates economic activity and enhances property values represents a significant improvement in the productive use of centrally located land.

The reconnection of neighborhoods that were previously separated by the air base perimeter is perhaps the most transformative effect. The base created a barrier several kilometers long that forced residents on opposite sides to make lengthy detours. The park, with its pedestrian paths and internal circulation, creates direct connections between these neighborhoods for the first time in decades.

The Vision for 2030 and Beyond

King Salman Park is designed not for a single opening day but for a trajectory of development that extends well beyond 2030. The park’s value will increase as trees mature, landscapes develop, cultural programming evolves, and patterns of use deepen. The Royal Arts Complex will build its reputation and collections over years and decades, not months.

This long-term perspective makes King Salman Park one of the most fundamentally sound investments in the Vision 2030 portfolio. Urban parks in cities worldwide have demonstrated their value over centuries — Central Park, the English Garden in Munich, Chapultepec in Mexico City — all contribute immeasurably to the quality of life, property values, and civic identity of their cities. King Salman Park, if maintained and developed with the care its scale deserves, will serve Riyadh for generations.

The park also serves as a demonstration of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to environmental quality and urban livability — commitments that are sometimes questioned given the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy and rapid urbanization. A 13.4-square-kilometer urban park, requiring billions in investment and decades of maintenance, is a tangible expression of the principle that economic development and environmental quality are not mutually exclusive.

For Riyadh residents, the most important aspect of King Salman Park may be the simplest: the opportunity to walk, play, rest, and gather in a beautiful green space in the heart of their city. In a region where outdoor public space has historically been limited by climate, culture, and urban design, the creation of a world-class urban park is a statement about the kind of city Riyadh aspires to be. That aspiration, grounded in the practical realities of landscape architecture and urban design rather than speculative technology, is one of the most genuinely compelling elements of Vision 2030.