Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) announced that a total number of 24,715,307 and 926,062 pilgrims performed Umrah and Haj respectively in the year 1443 AH/2022.
Of the total number of Umrah pilgrims 9,517,829 performed once in 2022, according to statistics.
The total number of pilgrims from abroad who performed Umrah reached 8,372,429.
According to the report, the total number of domestic Umrah performers reached 16,342,878, of whom Saudis accounted for 6,642,881 and non-Saudis for 9,699,997.
The highest number of Umrah performers was in April. The number of domestic performers reached 5,479,637.
As for the Haj statistics, GASTAT showed that the percentage of pilgrims from abroad reached 781,409 (84.4 percent) who came through various ports, while the percentage of domestic pilgrims reached 144,653 pilgrims (15.6 percent).
The pilgrims coming to the Kingdom via air transport amounted to 94.7 percent, via land transportation constituted 4.5 percent and sea transport recorded the lowest percentage of 0.8 percent.
What is Umrah and Haj?
Umrah is a pilgrimage to Islam’s two holiest sites in the cities of Makkah and Madinah and can be performed at any time of the year.
The Haj pilgrimage to Makkah is a mandatory religious duty that must be performed by those Muslims who are physically and financially able to perform it at least once in a lifetime.
