The Urban Planning Department at the college of architecture and planning-King Saud University is the oldest urban planning department in Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1983 (1404AH). Since that time, tens of distinguished faculty members who received their education in prestigious universities around the world taught in the department.

This has bestowed our department with a long-standing reputation for the delivery of excellent higher education, a high level of diversified experiences, and a distinct academic environment. The positive effect of the department in the community can be clearly seen as many of its members held senior positions in government agencies, and many of its graduates took on important positions in public and private sectors and played leading roles in the development and management of the Saudi built environment.

The department went through different stages to develop its undergraduate program, the last of which was the adoption of the new academic plan most recently. The department program is linked with the architecture department in the first two years. This is followed by two years specialization in one of two tracks; Urban Planning or Urban Design. Lately, our department has expanded in its postgraduate programs. It now provides three programs. They are; Urban Planning, Urban Design, and Real Estate Development.

This has kept pace with the university aspiration to expand further in postgraduate Studies in order to meet the needs of the labour market with specialists in the built environment fields at all levels. The department is also proud regarding the contribution of its staff to serve the community through the provision of consulting services to many governmental and private bodies in the areas of town planning and urban studies, not to mention the active involvement in the scientific societies such as; Saudi Umran and Saudi Association of Real Estate Sciences. Being chosen by the university as an academic specialization for excellence was a key motive for the department to continue its distinction and to achieve leadership in the areas of urban planning/design education at the national level. In addition to determined endeavours to accomplish the objective of academic accreditation as well as achieving the desired quality in higher education.

Chairman, Urban Planning Department