Saudi Arabia has started building the futuristic city NEOM since 2021. The progress of NEOM construction, which has been recorded by satellite imagery, shows that this work is indeed a giant project.
The city of NEOM is divided into three major projects which are named The Line, Trojena, and Oxagon respectively. The images taken by satellite belonging to Chang Guang Satellite Technology Corporation on October 22 this year, show several updates in the construction progress of The Line from the main base camp.
Quoted from Arabian Business, Tuesday (13/12/2022) the base camp is located at 28.10 degrees latitude and 35.30 degrees longitude on the east side of the peninsula region of Saudi Arabia.
The color-coded version of the base camp shows The Line being dug deep into the desert sand dunes, and is about 60 meters wide.
There are at least 425 excavation vehicles at the site, as shown by the red dots shown in the image. An estimated 1.7 million cubic meters of rock and sand were excavated in this area.
The satellite imagery also shows various parts of the construction site, such as the main construction camp marked in pink which used to house workers, and the solar panel arrays in green.
Meanwhile, in the western part of the prospective megacity area, it is located approximately at 28.15 degrees latitude and 34.68 degrees longitude. The first satellite image was taken on 10 September 2022 using a satellite belonging to Singapore's Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company.
The picture shows that there are 103 excavators digging around 0.7 million cubic meters of earth for the construction of The Line. According to pictures from Urban on Soar, the area has been excavated according to the planned area.
Not only that, recently in October, the latest drone footage was also released by the Saudi Arabia-based drone company OT Sky.
Based on the footage, a 170-kilometer linear city is being built in the northwestern Tabuk Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. An excavator is seen digging a wide trench in the desert.
The Line, which will have a glass façade, is planned to be 500 meters high. This area will accommodate nine million people and will be built on an area of 34 square kilometers.
This project is part of the USD 500 billion NEOM project, in addition to Trojena, and Oxagon which will later become the largest island in the world housing a futuristic city.
Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman said, The Line will realize Zero Gravity Urbanism, where city functions will be layered vertically.
"The designs revealed today for a vertically layered urban community will challenge traditional flat and horizontal cities and create a model for nature conservation and enhancing human livability," he said.
While The Line is made as a vertical city, Trojena will become a snowy tourist area and is prepared for the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Meanwhile, Oxagon, will be built as a floating metropolis and become a logistics center which will be a breakthrough in industrial development in the future.
When announcing the NEOM development plan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said, it is targeted that in 2024, residents of Saudi Arabia will be able to move to the city.