Mecca Mecca Mecca (; "" () is a city in the Hejazi region of the Arabian Peninsula, and the plain of Tihamah in Saudi Arabia, and is also the capital and administrative headquarters of the Makkah Region. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level, and south of Medina. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the "Ḥajj" (, "Pilgrimage") period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of "Dhūl-Ḥijjah" (). As the birthplace of Muhammad, and the site
Mecca squares. Traditional homes are built of local rock and are generally two to three stories. The total area of Mecca today is over . In pre-modern Mecca, the city used a few chief sources of water. The first were local wells, such as the Zamzam Well, that produced generally brackish water. The second source was the spring of Ayn Zubayda. The sources of this spring are the mountains of J̲abal Saʿd (Jabal Sa'd) and Jabal Kabkāb, which are a few kilometers east of Jabal Arafa or about southeast of Mecca. Water was transported from it using underground channels. A very