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History of Ad Dammam


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Ad Dammam was first inhabited by a family from Al Bin Ali clan, also known as Sons of Nasir and their relatives, a clan of Al Dossary tribe and a number of The Howela families in the early 1923. The Albinali family, led by Sheikh Nasir Ahmad Albinali, were invited by HRM the late King Abdul Aziz from Bahrain to come and inhabit Dammam. While the AlDossary families led by Sheikh Ahmed Ibn Abdullah ibn Hassan Al Dossary migrated from Bahrain and were given the chance to choose a land where to settle by HRM the late King Abdul Aziz. Ad Dammam was immediately chosen for its vicinity to the island of Bahrain as the clan hoped to head back there soon, but the British rule in the region made it very hard for them to move in every sense (dividi et impera) so they finally realized they had to settle there for good. Years later, Sheikh Ahmed's brother moved south where he and his family settled in Al Khobar, which by that time was already inhabited. However this tiny episode gave to Khobar a population boost and close ties with the bigger city of Dammam.

When the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, the area was the site of several hamlets that depended on fishing and pearls for their survival. Over a span of a little more than half a century, the area has developed into a thriving hub of industry, commerce and science, and home to more than half a million people. The area's transformation was launched with the discovery of oil in commercial quantities. The Eastern Province sits atop one of the largest oil fields in the world, and it was here in Dhahran in 1936 that Aramco, the predecessor of the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco, dug the famous Dammam No. 7 well that proved beyond doubt that the Kingdom possessed a large supply of hydrocarbons.

The discovery of new oil fields to the south, west and north of Dammam in the 1940s and 1950s, which now account for a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves, triggered a building
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