King Khalid International Airport (Arabic: مطار الملك خالد الدولي, romanized: Maṭār al-Malik Khālid al-Duwaliyy; IATA: RUH, ICAO: OERK) is an international airport located about 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The airport has one of the world's tallest air traffic control towers, and two parallel runways, each 4,260 metres (13,980 ft) in length.

[7] On 12 March 2023, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, formally announced the establishment of Riyadh Air.

The complex includes a modern VIPs terminal plus restaurants, cafeterias, airlines offices, government departments, hotels and rent-a-car companies counters, banks, first aid clinics and commercial shops.

Like the passenger terminals, the Royal Pavilion has a triangular plan, with a roof composed of 33 arched sections rising to a high point 30 metres (98 ft 5 in) above the ground level.

KKIA was the first airport in Saudi Arabia to be built to then-contemporary engineering standards and the mosque was at the time of its construction the most modern mosque in the world, notable for its use of advances in construction and engineering to create a modern complex in a vernacular Arabic style, and for its programme of integral art, at that time the largest in the world,[16] marrying traditional Islamic decorative elements[17] with, and interpreted through, the work of contemporary artists.

[18][19] Hexagonal in plan, and enclosing an area of over 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m2), its scale, location and design make it the most dominant building in the passenger complex.

[3] The mosque's dome, 33 metres (108 ft 3 in) in diameter and internally clad in polished bronze,[22] is internally separated from the lower roof of the building by a seven-foot clerestory ring of stained-glass windows, by artist Brian Clarke, below which runs a calligraphic mosaic band designed by Iranian-Armenian painter Edman Ayvazyan.

The hand-cut glass and marble mosaic, measuring 250 square metres (2,700 sq ft) and fabricated with Clarke's assistance, was the largest in the world at the time.

[23] The dome's apex, at 40 metres (131 ft 3 in) above the arrivals level roadway, is higher than all the other structures in the passenger complex with the exception of the control tower and minaret.

A spiral stairway inside the minaret provides access to loudspeakers that broadcast the prayer calls five times daily.

In 1982, through the Vesti Corporation, the British architectural artist Brian Clarke was commissioned to conceive of a scheme of stained glass artworks for the interior of the Royal Mosque.

Clarke made a study of Islamic ornament at the Quran schools in Fez and Tangiers for six weeks, and produced a series of abstract designs that engaged with historical pan-Islamic decorative tradition.

[25] The technical demands of the designs required the revival of certain traditional manufacturing techniques, the development of new ones to accommodate the programme of ornate geometric leading, and the deployment of modern technologies and materials, including screenprinting[26] and the acid-etching of float glass.

Centrally located in the passenger terminal complex, between the Royal Pavilion and the mosque is the air traffic control tower standing at 81 metres (265 ft 9 in) high.

The operations floor houses the radar control center for the airport as well as conference rooms, offices and a training area.