Saudi Arabia will display a marvelous city of tents

3 million people live on 4 square kilometers, what is that like? It's like 45 people living in a small 60 square meter house in Shanghai. It sounds like an impossible mission, but Saudi Arabians make it happen.

At the 2010 Shanghai Expo, Saudi Arabia will, for the first time, announce and explain to the world the creation of the innovative city—Mecca, by using the example of the Minna Tent City in Mecca. It will explain the idea of a tent city, where 3 million can reside on no more than 4 square kilometers of land.

Minna Tent City in Mecca

Mecca in Saudi Arabia is the most famous Muslim holy city in the world, and according to statistics from the Saudi Arabian government, the number of pilgrims to the city reaches around 2.52 million. Few people can stay in the hotels within Mecca city, however. To improve living conditions for the pilgrims, in the past decade, the government tried, against all odds, to come up with a solution. They spent 25 billion Saudi Arabian riyals (which converts to about 45.5 billion RMB) to build a city of 40,000 large tents in the Mecca Minna Valley to accommodate the millions of pilgrims. It is called the Minna Tent City, and it is the largest tent city in history, making it the place with the highest population density.

In Minna Tent City, you can find all the basic living amenities, and air-conditioners and modern communication equipment are also provided. The large impounding reservoir can meet resident's water needs, and there are also advanced fire and flood-protection. According to the plans, many streets will be built and have multilingual street signs, and service shops and clinics will be set up in each residential unit. The outskirts of the city will be connected with highways, overpasses and tunnels, which will all help facilitate traffic flow.

It is also worth mentioning what materials the tents are made out of. Early on, the tents were made of cotton, which easily caught fire, so the tents are now made of a special, improved material. According to Banda, the project manager for the Mecca Tent City, the new tent fabric boasts of a life span of 25 years, and it can help protect against fire, wind, corrosion and also has an anti-slip surface. Its structure is easy to change, and the sunshine filter in the material keep out about 90 percent of the sun's rays, which will help keep the temperature within the tent stable.

In the case of the Mecca Tent City at the Shanghai Expo, every tent is an exact copy of a real tent. The tent city will be the center of the whole exhibition. According to Banda, the exhibition is composed of six zones. Visitors can not only see the overall model of the tent city, but also watch a documentary film introducing the history of the pilgrimage on a large, wall-mounted screen. Visitors will therefore be able to appreciate the unique landscape of the world's largest artificial reservoir and learn about how the Saudi Arabian government plans to solve the health and environmental concerns of the people living in the tents. In the fourth exhibition zone, people can view the new Jamarat Bridge, which can transport 500,000 pilgrims per hour. In the sixth exhibition zone, visitors have the opportunity to preview the Saudi Arabian government's future planning scheme for the Holy City, which includes a high-speed railway project in the Holy City, which will be co-built by China and Saudi Arabia. The five parallel railways will be able to transport about 5 million pilgrims in an 8 hour span.

Currently, the special tent fabric has already been safely transferred from Saudi Arabia to Shanghai, and has been brought to the construction site for installation. Banda said that all the technical problems have already been addressed, and the Minna Tent City will be completed on time to welcome the guests.

Translated by LOTO