[4][14][15] It could stretch from the Red Sea approximately to the city of Tabuk and could have nine million residents, resulting in an average population density of 260,000 per square kilometre (670,000/sq mi).

[20] The first plan for The Line was announced on 10 January 2021 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a presentation broadcast on state television.

[6] Bin Salman, as chairman of the Neom board of directors, released a statement and promotional video on 25 July 2021 which led to more widespread media coverage of the project.

[23] This caused questions to be raised about the merits of the design and environmental issues, with critics concerned that the project would create a "dystopian"[24] and "artificial" facility[25] that had already displaced the Huwaitat indigenous tribe[26][27] and would impact the migration of birds and wildlife.

[citation needed] The project management required all architects to sign confidentiality agreements, which is why there are no references to The Line on any of their websites.

German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung learned that two architects had terminated their participation in the project because of human rights and ecological concerns, Norman Foster and Francine Houben from Mecanoo.

The paper also reported that several high-ranking architects were still on board, David Adjaye, Ben van Berkel (UN Studios), Massimiliano Fuksas, the London office of the late Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) as well as Delugan Meissl and Wolf D. Prix from Coop Himmelb(l)au.

[citation needed] [33] Early plans proposed an underground railway with 510-kilometre-per-hour (317 mph) trains that could travel from one end of The Line to the other in 20 minutes.

[33] In April 2024 it was reported that the project had been "scaled back" after foreign direct investment investors had not "bought into the crown prince's vision", according to Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal analyst at risk consultancy Maplecroft.

He said in an interview during World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh that "For NEOM, the projects, the intended scale is continuing as planned.

[9] In an interview with Dezeen, associate professor Marshall Brown at Princeton University said he believed that in such large-scale urban planning, it would be difficult to achieve the slick, futuristic aesthetic seen in the concept art because of the large number of factors involved; for example, one of the images depicts a picnic on a 200-metre-high (660 ft) ledge, which would probably be dangerous in real life.

[35] Dutch architect Winy Maas said that while he would love to live in such an environment, its profile as seen in the concept art was monotonous, and he believed it would facilitate unfavorable wind flow through the interior.

The required density in a circular city would be much lower, which would allow it to be built with existing technology, reducing the environmental footprint of buildings.

In October 2022, three men of the Howeitat tribe, Shadli, Ibrahim, and Ataullah al-Huwaiti, were sentenced to death when they refused to vacate their village as part of the NEOM project.