Well, we'd build our palace first. Got to have somewhere to stay.

New images have revealed a monstrous construction site set to host a lavish new palace, expected to cost hundreds of billions. Part of the wider NEOM megacity project, the Saudi Arabian palace is being created on land previously part of the desert on the Red Sea coast.

Under the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has launched Vision 2030, a project to diversify the national economy away from a dependence on the oil reserves which brought such vast wealth.

In October 2024, satellite imagery showed the new large palace, helipads, manicured gardens, a golf course, as well as lavish landscaping, artificial lagoons and tree-lined roads.

Such a lush environment was created despite temperatures in the area ranging from 21-32C through the year. Located in Saudi Arabia’s northeast, the NEOM project of which the palace complex is part is a planned city launched in 2017. It sits at the northern tip of the Red Sea, across from Egypt, and it planned to take up 10,200 square miles (26,500km2).

Read the full story at Express