The Line is the headline urban component of NEOM and one of the most ambitious building concepts of the 21st century. It is planned as a 170-kilometre linear city in the desert of northwest Saudi Arabia, formed by two parallel mirrored skyscrapers running from the Red Sea coast inland toward the Sarawat mountains.
Specifications
The publicly stated design of The Line, released by NEOM Company in July 2022, has the following dimensions and characteristics.
- Length: 170 kilometres, running roughly east to west from the Red Sea coast.
- Width: 200 metres.
- Height: 500 metres, taller than the Empire State Building.
- Footprint: 34 square kilometres, compared with the roughly 605 square kilometres of New York City.
- Design population: up to 9 million residents at full build-out.
- Energy: 100 percent renewable, with no operational carbon emissions as designed.
- Transit: high-speed underground rail with an end-to-end journey of around 20 minutes.
- Walkability: all daily essentials within a five-minute walk.
The structure is described as a single building, though in practical terms it is a continuous chain of structures spanning the desert.
Design philosophy
NEOM Company has framed The Line as a rethinking of conventional urban form. The argument is that suburban sprawl consumes vast quantities of land and forces long daily journeys, while compressing the city into a linear band frees the surrounding landscape for nature and shortens the daily distances residents travel.
Inside the linear corridor, services, schools, hospitals, and workplaces are arranged so that any resident is within a five-minute walk of daily needs. Longer journeys move underground, on a high-speed transit line that runs the full length of the city.
The exterior is clad in mirrored glass. Officially this serves two purposes: it reduces visible mass against the landscape, and it reflects sunlight to reduce heat absorption by the structure itself.
Climate and energy strategy
The Line operates entirely on renewable energy. NEOM’s renewable energy portfolio combines large-scale solar and wind generation across the region, with battery and green hydrogen storage to balance supply.
Climate control inside the corridor relies on a combination of passive design, the cooling effect of the mirrored exterior, and active mechanical systems. The narrow, deep section also benefits from natural updraughts that move air vertically through the structure.
Transit
The Line is car-free. Movement between districts uses a multi-tier transit system.
- Pedestrian streets form the surface layer, with all daily destinations reachable on foot.
- A high-speed rail line runs the full 170-kilometre length of the city in an underground tunnel, with a design end-to-end journey time of around 20 minutes.
- Bike paths and electric mobility complement the rail system for medium-distance trips.
The transit design eliminates surface streets and parking from the urban environment, freeing space for parks, plazas, and waterways inside the corridor.
Construction
Construction on The Line has been underway since 2022, with foundation and excavation work along the initial alignment. The first stretch of the city is being built near the Red Sea coast and is intended to demonstrate the urban concept at scale.
NEOM has worked with a range of international architecture and engineering firms on the design and execution, including Morphosis, the Helmut Jahn studio, and others. The complete delivery of the 170-kilometre vision is a multi-decade project, with phased opening of districts planned through and beyond 2030.
Living in The Line
The design concept envisions communities of mixed use stacked vertically rather than spread horizontally. A typical district inside The Line is described as a vertical neighbourhood, with residences, retail, schools, healthcare, and workplaces arranged within the same footprint.
Daylight enters through openings and atria along the length of the corridor. Indoor parks, gardens, and public spaces are layered through the section.
Sustainability
The Line is designed to operate without operational carbon emissions and to occupy a much smaller footprint than a conventional city of equivalent population. NEOM has publicised commitments to integrate green hydrogen, large-scale photovoltaics, and on-site water recycling. Native plants and protected habitats outside the structure are preserved in their original state.
Where this fits
This article is part of a series on NEOM. The main overview introduces the wider region and Vision 2030. Related pages cover Trojena, Sindalah, Oxagon, Magna, completion date and progress, and jobs at NEOM.
Sources
This article draws on public NEOM Company announcements, design materials released by NEOM, the Vision 2030 documentation, and reporting in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Reuters. Corrections welcome.