Salalah

Key takeaways

Salalah belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Salalah to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Salalah from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Salalah (Arabic: صَلَالَة, romanized: Ṣalālah) is the capital and largest city of the southern Omani governorate of Dhofar. It has a population close to 331,949. Salalah is the third-largest city in the Sultanate of Oman, and the largest city in the Dhofar province. Salalah is the birthplace of former Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Salalah attracts many tourists from other parts of Oman and from abroad during the monsoon/khareef season, from June to September. The climate of the region and the monsoon allow the city to grow some vegetables and fruits like coconut and bananas. There are many gardens within the city where these vegetables and fruits grow.

History Salalah currently is and was the traditional capital of Dhofar, which reached the peak of prosperity in the 13th century thanks to the incense trade. Later it decayed, and in the 19th century it was absorbed by the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. Between 1932 and 1970, Salalah was the residence of Sultan Said bin Taimur. His son, Qaboos, who acceded to his father's throne in 1970, decided to move his capital to Muscat, the largest city in Oman, where he lived until he quietly left for treatment in Germany. Sultan Qaboos's absence was much regretted in Salalah, where his palace was always kept ready to receive him. His last visits were in 2006 to meet influential tribal and local leaders, and in 2010 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his accession with a massive parade watched for several hours by an estimated 100,000 spectators. Despite the Sultan's generally benevolent government running Oman without national taxation, thanks to its vast mineral resources, and with all menial work done by Asian labourers, Salalah saw peaceful protests for a few months in 2011 in the domino effect of the Arab Spring. Some Omani protesters demanded the dismissal of current ministers, better job opportunities, salary increases, a solution to the increasing cost of living, or the establishment of Islamic banks.

Demographics

Religion The city, like many other in Arab states of the Arabian Peninsula, has a relatively large expatriate community, mainly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. The majority of the Omani population (98.9%) in Salalah is Muslim. Unlike Omanis on the eastern coast of Oman in and around Muscat, most of whom are Ibadis, most Muslims in Salalah follow the Sunni sect of Islam. There is also a considerable population of Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and Sikhs in the expatriate community.

Language Arabic is the official language. The unofficial, unwritten non-Arabic language known as Shehri is the second most spoken language and the mother tongue of many in Salalah and its surrounding areas, with 25,000 estimated speakers as of 1993. English is the official foreign language and the most spoken language of the expats. Malayalam is another popular language and together with Tamil, Telugu, along with Urdu, Hindi, European Spanish, Catalan, Romanian and Somali are widely spoken language among expatriates.

Economy

APM Terminals, part of the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group of Denmark, manages the Port of Salalah; one of the largest ports on the Arabian Peninsula which is an important transshipment hub for container shipping in the area. The Port of Salalah is also one of the most vital ports on the peninsula connecting together Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But the port is outside the city, to the south. It is also the largest private employer in the Dhofar region. The Salalah Free Zone, situated right beside the port, is emerging as a new center for heavy industries in the Middle East.

Tourism Salalah has an international tourist economy with many Middle Eastern tourists during the Khareef season from June to September. In this season the mountains turn green, and there are many waterfalls to visit, such as at Wadi Darbat, Ain Athum, Ain Tubrook, and Ain Khor. There are four reputed tombs of Islamic prophets: Nabi Imran, possibly the Virgin Mary's father but more likely a local prophet; Nabi Ayoob, the biblical Job; Nabi Houd; and Nabi Salih. The city received more than 600,000 tourists during the khareef season in 2017. Amongst the Dhofar Governorate's cultural attractions is the Salalah carnival, which includes the usual rides, family activities, concerts, cultural events and vendors. One of Joachim's or Al Imran's believed graves is in Salalah; which is claimed to be the "longest grave in the world" (12 metres).

Climate

The city has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh), although summers are cooler than in more northern or inland parts of Oman. Salalah is very cloudy and foggy during the Monsoon of South Asia months of July and August, even though it receives relatively little rainfall. Khareef, خريف means "autumn" in Arabic, but it refers to monsoon when describing the region around Salalah. During this time, the brown landscape of Salalah and its surroundings are completely transformed to beautiful and lush green scenes. This provides picturesque scenes for photos. Cyclone Mekunu, which originated over the Arabian Sea, became an extremely severe cyclone before hitting the Salalah city on 25 May 2018. 200 km/h was the recorded windspeed, and the city of Salalah was pounded with over 617 mm (24.3 in) of rainfall, which is almost 5 years of Oman's average rainfall.

Sports

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Salalah

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Salalah claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Salalah before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Salalah ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Salalah

In research: Salalah appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Salalah in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Salalah is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Indian Ocean, Populated places in Dhofar, Port cities and towns in the Arabian Peninsula, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Salalah outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Salalah in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Salalah means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Salalah out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Salalah in simple terms?

Salalah (Arabic: صَلَالَة, romanized: Ṣalālah) is the capital and largest city of the southern Omani governorate of Dhofar. It has a population close to 331,949.

Why does Salalah matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Salalah?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Salalah.