science

The Line, Saudi Arabia

The Line, Saudi Arabia is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Line, Saudi Arabia rather than just read about it. In short: The Line (Arabic: ذا لاين) is a planned linear settlement in Neom, Tabuk Province, Saudi Arabia, to be housed entirely in a single very long arcology. Announced in 2021, it was envisioned as a smart city with no cars, streets or carbon emissions.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

The Line (Arabic: ذا لاين) is a planned linear settlement in Neom, Tabuk Province, Saudi Arabia, to be housed entirely in a single very long arcology. Announced in 2021, it was envisioned as a smart city with no cars, streets or carbon emissions. The project was conceived by Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman, the leader of the project. By 2025, the megaproject had been substantially scaled down or suspended. The initial plan, announced in 2021, called for the city to span 170 kilometres (110 mi) at a height of 500 m (1,600 ft) and a width of 200 metres (660 ft), with the capacity to accommodate a population of 9 million (25% of Saudi Arabia's 2022 population of 35.5 million). The Line was planned to have an entirely glass mirror exterior, with all basic services within a five-minute walking distance. The city is one of the five announced regions of Neom and was a part of the Saudi Vision 2030 project. From the start, the Line has been criticised for unrealistic costs and timelines, an impractical shape, environmental harm, and human rights violations. Thousands of people have been forcibly moved to make way for the project and villages have been razed. In 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported on an internal audit of the megaproject which found extensive problems, including "evidence of deliberate manipulation", by the managers of the project. Saudi Arabia stated that it aimed to complete a 5 km (3.1 mi) segment by 2030, with completion of the full 170 km (110 mi) project in 2045. In 2024, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported that the first phase would only be 2.4 km (1.5 mi) long; Saudi officials denied this and stated that the project was continuing as planned. After $50 billion had been spent, the project was reported to be facing problems including large cost increases and delays. The aim had become to complete the first half-mile section in 2034. The Wall Street Journal said that a 2023 draft board presentation estimated completion in 2080 at a cost of $8.8 trillion—25 times the annual Saudi budget—and $370 billion by 2035 for the first phase, mostly funded by the Saudi state, with the hope of later private investment. By the end of 2025, the project appeared to have been suspended and no construction work was taking place. International media described The Line as a "likely failure". In May 2026, Semafor reported that Saudi Arabia had delayed the construction of The Line until at least after 2030.

Proposal

The Line was planned to extend 170 kilometres (110 miles) from near the Red Sea to the city of Tabuk, and to accommodate up to nine million residents, with a projected average population density of 260,000 per square kilometre (670,000/sq mi). This was six times that of Manila, the world's most densely populated city in 2020 (44,000 per square kilometre (110,000/sq mi)), and over a fifth of that of the Kowloon Walled City (1.2 million per square kilometre (3 million/sq mi)). The Line's design consisted of two mirrored buildings with an outdoor space in between, having a total width of 200 metres (660 ft) and a height of 500 metres (1,600 ft). This would have made it the third-tallest building in the country after the Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower and the Jeddah Tower, and approximately the 12th-tallest building in the world. The city was to be powered entirely by renewable energy. It would have consisted of three layers: one on the surface for pedestrians, one underground for infrastructure, and another underground for transportation. Artificial intelligence would have monitored the city and used predictive and data models to find ways to improve daily life for its citizens, with residents being paid for submitting data to The Line. The estimated construction cost was US$100–200 billion (400–700 billion SAR), with some estimates as high as $1 trillion. It was claimed by the Saudi government that it would have created 460,000 jobs, spurred economic diversification, and contributed 180 billion SAR (US$48 billion) to domestic GDP by 2030. According to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2022, the first phase project was expected to cost SAR 1.2 trillion (US$320 billion), with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) providing half of the sum.

Feasibility According to architect and urban planner Etienne Bou-Abdo, "the 3D images presented were not classical 3D architecture images", and the designers of the project "have rather called upon video game designers". Bou-Abdo stated that the plan included "a lot of technology that we don't have today". Many of the project's key announcements, particularly in the areas of energy and transportation, were based on technologies that did not exist even in prototype form.

Reported scaling back In April 2024, it was reported that the project had been "scaled back." According to Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal analyst at risk consultancy firm Maplecroft, foreign investors had shown limited interest in the crown prince's vision for the project. Fluctuating global oil prices had contributed to the decision. The Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning, Faisal F. Alibrahim, disputed reports of scaling back. He said in an interview during a World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh in 2024 that "For NEOM, the projects, the intended scale is continuing as planned. There is no change in scale". As of October 2024, Saudi Arabia intended to complete a 5 km (3.1 mi) central segment of The Line by 2030. Completion of the full 170 km (110 mi) project was rescheduled for 2045. According to CNBC, in July 2025, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund used consulting firms to conduct a strategic review into the feasibility of The Line as part of “common practice” strategic checks on long-term megaprojects. The Times reported in August 2025 that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund had written down $8 billion from major projects, including the Neom development. According to The Times, "many of the projects faced delays and cost overruns and had reportedly been scaled back." The report added that Neom faced "repeated delays" after other infrastructure projects were given priority. On September 16, 2025, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF suspended work on the construction project until further notice. The PIF is expected to spend $16 billion on the task of cancelling contracts and remediating the effects of shutting down the project.

Planning The Line concept contained elements of architectural ideas from the industrial era.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

The Line, Saudi Arabia: Artist's conception of the outdoor interior space within The Line — Artist's conception of the outdoor interior space within The Line

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Line, Saudi Arabia

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Line, Saudi Arabia claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia

In research: The Line, Saudi Arabia appears in 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia 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: The Line, Saudi Arabia is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2021 establishments in Saudi Arabia, Economy of Saudi Arabia, Neom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Line, Saudi Arabia 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.

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How to study The Line, Saudi Arabia in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Line, Saudi Arabia 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Line, Saudi Arabia in simple terms?

Why does The Line, Saudi Arabia matter?

Because it connects several 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 The Line, Saudi Arabia?

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 The Line, Saudi Arabia.