The Diplomatic Quarter (DQ) is home to beautiful palm fringed gardens where you can while away a few hours under the shade of a tree and get some exercise while walking, running, or biking its trails.
The Diplomatic Quarter, or DQ as it is popularly known, is home to foreign embassies and international organizations as well as residential structures and malls. With lush gardens and numerous sports facilities, it is also one of the city’s greenest areas. It is especially known for its fine architecture, and is considered a model for other Islamic cities around the world.
The landscapes of Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter have become one of the kingdom’s most precious urban resources and perhaps Saudi Arabia’s most accomplished work of "green architecture."
Walking through the DQ’s parks today, it is difficult even for those who helped design them to realize that, in the mid-1970’s, the area was merely a featureless continuation of the bare and rocky Saudi desert.
From its inception, the DQ was treated as an urban project within the capital city’s development, with the aim of achieving maximum integration, interaction, and coordination with the rest of Riyadh. Its site is on the western edge of the city, bordering the Wadi Hanifah, and its basic organizing principle, in terms of land use, is a central spine linking individual neighborhood units.
The core area was designated for embassy buildings and central facilities such as banks, supermarkets, hospitals, community centers, police and fire stations, and Friday mosques. Each of the neighborhood units—five in all—was linked to the core by a ring road or beltway and featured its own appropriate facilities: schools, kindergartens, shopping centers, neighborhood centers, residential areas, and mosques.
Pathways, seating areas and picnic places are positioned to take full advantage of views into the Wadi Hanifah, to give sunset views and catch cool evening breezes.