Learn here all about the demographics and language in Saudi Arabia.
26 September 2013
| Last updated on 27 June 2017
Until 1960 the majority of the Saudi population was nomadic however due to the rapid economic growth more than 95% of the population is settled. Approximately 31% of the population is made up of foreign nationals including the citizens of India, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, The Phillipines, Jordan/Palestine, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, and Turkey. There are around 100,000 Westerners in Saudi Arabia, most of who live in compounds or gated communities.
The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic, however there are many different dialects of Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic (about 6 million speakers), Nejdi Arabic (about 8 million speakers) and Gulf Arabic (about 0.2 million speakers). The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous being Tagalog (700,000), Rohingya (400,000), Urdu (380,000), and Egyptian Arabic (300,000). English is both widely spoken and taught in schools.
