1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Saudi Arabia
Compare this sourced profile of Makkah, Saudi Arabia before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Makkah—1,578,722, Asia/Riyadh, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Makkah is GeoNames ID 104515. Its recorded administrative path is Mecca Region → Saudi Arabia, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Makkah occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-14; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Makkah ranks 291 by recorded population. Inside the 11 selected Saudi Arabia entries it ranks 3; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 62. Its 1,578,722 population value is 1.67 times the 946,697 median for the country cohort and 1.75 times the 902,588 regional median. Makkah falls between the leading tenth and quarter of this atlas's Saudi Arabia population cohort. Makkah's recorded value is above the country-cohort median but remains below twice that benchmark. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Makkah's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Ta'if at 63.549 km with 688,693 recorded people; Jeddah at 66.544 km with 4,697,000 recorded people; Port Sudan at 338.068 km with 489,725 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 274.519 km. Compared with Ta'if, Makkah's recorded population is 2.29 times as large. Against Makkah, Ta'if follows Mecca Region → Saudi Arabia in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Saudi Arabia cohort, uses the shared Asia/Riyadh identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Makkah's. Against Makkah, Jeddah follows Mecca Region → Saudi Arabia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Saudi Arabia cohort, uses the shared Asia/Riyadh identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Makkah's. Against Makkah, Port Sudan follows Red Sea → Sudan in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Sudan cohort rather than Saudi Arabia, uses Africa/Khartoum instead of Asia/Riyadh, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Makkah's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 519 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Makkah's nearest-coordinate gap sits in the second quarter of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 104515, the coordinate pair 21.4266 / 39.8256, country rank 3 of 11, and neighbor GeoNames 107968 at 63.549 km bind Makkah to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Makkah's reference point is 21.4266° north and 39.8256° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Riyadh is shared by 11 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Makkah's row carries a first-order administrative label but no second-order label. Makkah's point falls in the lower-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Makkah's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Makkah, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Makkah's closest other entries in this atlas are Ta'if (63.549 km), Jeddah (66.544 km), Port Sudan (338.068 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Makkah, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-14; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.