1 · POSITION
Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Makkah, is the old town of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port, inscribed by UNESCO in 2014. From the seventh century it was a major port of the Indian Ocean trade, passing goods on to Mecca, and the harbour where every pilgrim who reached Arabia by sea came ashore. The register holds it for the buildings that received them: the ribats and wakalas that housed pilgrims, and the merchants’ tower houses. [1]
2 · THE PORT OF MECCA
The third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, made Jeddah the official port of Mecca. Its traditional souqs run east to west, from the sea towards the Makkah Gate, along the line the pilgrim walked; its historic mosques keep their religious role and most of their original features. [1]
3 · THE TOWER HOUSES
Jeddah’s merchant families built tall tower houses, decorated with great wooden roshan, in the late nineteenth century — a type that developed after the Suez Canal opened in 1869 and brought new trade to the Red Sea. They joined the coast’s tradition of building in Red Sea coral with crafts and influences carried along the trade routes. [1]
4 · LODGING THE PILGRIM
UNESCO names the ribats and wakalas as the structures that used to host the pilgrims. The ribat, a charitable lodging, and the wakala, the merchant’s caravanserai that the register describes in Cairo, are the same answer to the same arrival: a stranger who must be housed before he can travel on. [1]
5 · ⚑ CANDOUR
⚑ Checked on 22 October 2026. Commerce below and accommodation above was not found. Nasseef House, 1872–1881, rises seven levels round a central hall, with cisterns on the ground floor, a kitchen on the fifth and a sleeping pavilion on the roof; King Abdulaziz stayed there in 1925. The note now names the house rather than the phrase. [1–2]
Sources & Further Reading
Sources checked 22 October 2026.