22/03/2023
About 40 kilometers (or a one-hour boat ride) from Jazan, you’ll find the Farasan Islands. More than 80 islands make up the archipelago, but only three of them are home to year-round residents. The largest and most inhabited is Farasan Island: About 12,000 permanent residents live on this island, and many of them commute to Jazan for work. The island is known for its incredible biodiversity — the Saudi Wildlife Authority declared the Farasan Islands a protected area in 1996 — and boasts pristine coral reefs for epic scuba diving, a variety of fish and world-class birding for species including the white-eyed gull, the crab plover and the sooty falcon. On land, you may catch a sighting of the endangered Farasan gazelle (there were only a thousand of these graceful creatures left as of 2013)
