In the mid-1970s Riyadh's population was increasing by about 10 percent a year. The red circles are fields with center-pivot irrigation systems, drawing water from Saudi Arabia's aquifers. This irrigation development resulted from the investment of part of Saudi Arabia's oil revenues in an effort to modernize agriculture. The smaller city of Buraydah , northwest of Riyadh, shows the same pattern of urban growth and agricultural development. From 1972 to 1986 the population of Buraydah almost tripled, from 60,000 to about 180,000 people.
New roads are visible, and irrigated land increased dramatically.
Buraydah and Riyadh both lie in Saudi Arabia's central corridor of settlement and development. 2 Footnotes 1. Washington, GPO, p. 64-66. 2. The Buraydah population figures are from the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington. The Saudi Arabia population map overlay is redrawn from Nyrop p. 65.