๐ How Rare Are You in Saudi Arabia?
๐ธ๐ฆ Genetic Landscape of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's genetic profile reflects the Arabian Peninsula's role as a bridge between Africa, Asia, and Europe. While the population appears phenotypically homogeneous, genetic studies reveal remarkable diversity from ancient migration routes. The high rate of consanguineous marriage (~50%) has concentrated certain genetic traits and conditions. Saudi genetics carry traces of the original Out-of-Africa migration, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions. B blood type is unusually common compared to Western nations.
The Hejaz, around Mecca and Medina, has been absorbing arrivals for as long as the hajj has existed. Pilgrims from West Africa, Central Asia, India and the Malay world came for the season and never went home, and old Jeddah households still carry the surnames that record it. The Najd heartland, screened by desert on every side, stayed far more inward-looking, while the terraced highlands of Asir catch the edge of the Indian Ocean monsoon and farm and build more like Yemen than like Riyadh. Names carry the rest of the story. A full name runs as a chain โ given name, father, grandfather, then the tribe or the town behind the family โ so it often says where someone belongs before its bearer says anything at all.
๐ The Civil Year Here Is Shorter Than the One This Page Assumes
Saudi Arabia's civil calendar is the Umm al-Qura Hijri calendar, used by the government for civil purposes and computed in advance at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. From 1423 AH — 15 March 2002 — a month ends after 29 days only if two things hold on that 29th day at Mecca: the geocentric conjunction falls before sunset, and the moon sets after the sun. Otherwise the month runs 30 days. Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates follow it too.
Twelve months of 29 or 30 days work out at roughly 354 days, about eleven short of a Gregorian year, so a birthday kept on one calendar walks backwards through the other's seasons. It is not theoretical: the official Saudi gazette, Umm Al-Qura, prints the Hijri date first, and the edition we opened was 11 Rabฤซสฟ al-Thฤnฤซ 1448 — 22 September 2026. Our birthday rarity page quietly assumes the Gregorian one.
๐๏ธ Eye Color
| Brown | 72% |
| Dark Brown | 18% |
| Hazel | 5% |
| Green | 3% |
| Black | 2% |
๐ Hair Color
| Black | 75% |
| Dark Brown | 18% |
| Brown | 5% |
| Other | 2% |
๐ฉธ Blood Type
| O+ | 34% |
| A+ | 27% |
| B+ | 22% |
| AB+ | 5% |
| O- | 5% |
| A- | 4% |
| B- | 2% |
| AB- | 1% |
Trait frequencies on this page come from public and institutional datasets โ see Data Sources.
🧮 Calculate Your Rarity in Saudi Arabia
Pick your eye colour, hair colour and blood type. The calculator uses Saudi Arabia's own figures from the tables above, not world averages.
This is an estimate, not a measurement. It multiplies three national frequencies as if they were independent, and they are not: eye and hair colour share pigmentation genes, so a combination that tends to run together, such as blue eyes with blonde hair, is more common than the multiplication suggests, while one that rarely does, such as blue eyes with black hair, is rarer. Blood type is independent of both. The frequencies are national averages from public datasets — see Data Sources.
That number describes the body you were born with. Fraeon, our other site, does the same arithmetic for the part you chose: the films, series, games, books, anime and manga you have actually finished. Start your log →
๐ฐ๏ธ Until About 1968, There Was No Single Clock Here
The IANA time zone database — the file phones and servers read to work out what time it is — notes that time in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Arabian peninsula was not standardized until 1968 or so, that nobody knows exactly when, and that possibly it was never made official. One common practice had been to set a watch to 12:00 — midnight — at sunset, which meant the time on one side of a mountain could differ greatly from the time on the other.
Timekeeping differed depending on who you were and which part of the country you were in. Many foreigners set their watches to 6pm at sunset instead; airlines used UTC+3, except at Dhahran, where they used UTC+4; Aramco ran UTC+3 with daylight saving. The database's Riyadh entry gives local mean time of UTC+3:06:52 until 14 March 1947 and a flat UTC+3 since, with no daylight-saving rule. For a site asking how rare a birth date is, that is the sharper question: for decades there was no single answer here to what time it was.
๐ฉธ Two Saudi Regions, Two Different Runners-Up
The blood table above prints one national row. Two published Saudi studies show how much that row can carry. In the Hail region, blood-bank records for 3,166 donors gave O+ at 38.7%, then B+ at 23.5%, then A+ at 20.6%. At the blood bank of King Abdullah Hospital in Bisha, northern Asir, 4,167 voluntary donors sampled through 2020 came out in the order O+ > A+ > B+ > O- > AB+ > A- > B- > AB-. Second and third place have swapped.
Neither is a measurement of the country. Both are donor pools, and a donor pool is whoever gave blood at that one blood bank: the Hail group was 97.4% male, 3,083 donors out of 3,166, with a median age of 35. That is worth holding onto when the calculator on this page multiplies a single national blood figure by two others. The national picture, and what it can and cannot tell you, is on our rarest blood type page.
โญ Rare Facts About Saudi Arabia
Where the numbers on this page come from
The population tile rounds 35,300,280, the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) figure labelled Population Estimates Publication 2024. The height tile can only be modelled: NCD-RisC pooled 1,472 studies and more than 18.6 million participants in eLife, 2016. The blood figures come from hospital donor studies, not a register. The eye and hair percentages have no official source at all — GASTAT publishes education, housing, labour market and vitals and demographics, not eye or hair colour — so treat them as estimates. Last checked September 2026.