Read the complete studyOriginal research, charts, supporting tables and source links
The pixels agree with the events and disagree with the dates.
At all three sites, what was built is visible from orbit and matches the public record of awards, sales launches and openings. What does not match is timing: every stated completion date passed with the imagery showing a site still under construction. And one thing the record did not say, the pixels did: Sindalah's irrigated green, a quarter of the island's land from late 2022, vanished between April and September 2025 and has not come back.
Frames at the 'advanced stage'; the green switched off in 2025.
In July 2023 NEOM's CEO said construction was at an advanced stage with first visitors due in Q1 2024. The last free sub-metre capture, January 2023, shows the golf course grassed, the marina dredged and the hotel clusters at structural-frame stage. At 10 m, the green fraction of the island's land held at 26 to 30 percent from September 2022 to April 2025, then fell to 2 percent by September 2025 and under 1 percent by 2026. Grass that is not watered in that climate dies in weeks. The island was reported shut in July 2025.
Reshaped by 2023, roofed by 2025.
The island was to be 'fully operational by end 2023'. In October 2023 sub-metre imagery shows the whole island re-cut with lagoons, roads and hotel footprints, and structures at every cluster. By April 2025 the golf course is grassed and clusters are roofed. The first hotel opened in November 2025, two years after the stated date.
Built as fast as it was sold.
Off-plan sales opened in October 2021; the December 2021 capture already shows thousands of villa frames beside ROSHN Front, on land that was bare in October 2020. Handovers began November 2022 as stated. The 10 m series tracks each phase spreading north; what it cannot do is count homes or say which are occupied.
Two free sources, one rule.
The rule: a claim is only compared with an image captured on or after the date the claim was made, and only with a claim that carries a number or a date. Everything else is context.
Sentinel-2, every quarter.
For each site we took the least-cloudy Sentinel-2 L2A scene in every quarter from 2019 to 2026 from the public AWS archive, read the red, near-infrared and short-wave infrared bands over the site box, masked clouds and shadow with the scene classification layer, and compared every pixel to a pre-construction baseline scene from early 2019.
Three fractions are charted. Disturbed: the share of land pixels whose reflectance moved far from the baseline after removing the scene-wide illumination gain, which is what earthworks, roads, roofs and reclamation do. Dark: the share that became much darker, which asphalt, roofs and shadowed urban fabric do. Land: the share of the box that is land rather than water, which reclamation and dredging change.
Wayback, only where it changed.
Esri's World Imagery Wayback keeps every release of the base map since 2014. Release dates are not capture dates, so for each site we walked all 196 releases, kept only the ones where the tile over the site actually changed, and asked each release's metadata service for the capture date and source resolution at that point.
That gives a short list of true captures per site, and one honest surprise: the free sub-metre record over Sindalah ends in January 2023, over Shura it jumps from 2015 to October 2023, and over SEDRA it runs to September 2025. The chips shown are those captures, unretouched.
- Claims were collected by three researchers, one per site, from pages they opened; every row carries the URL. A separate verification pass re-opened all 35 claims used on the charts; its corrections are listed in section 09.
- Saudi figures are never mixed with GCC or MENA figures. Destination-wide claims (The Red Sea's 16 hotels, NEOM-wide budgets) are marked as such and not read as claims about the island.
- Nothing here is a measurement of percent complete. The 10 m fractions are change indicators on a fixed box; the sub-metre chips are what a person sees. Where a claim was a date, the test is whether the image on that date shows a finished site.
- Boxes: Sindalah from the OSM coastline polygon padded 300 m; Shura from the OSM island polygon plus the bridge landing; SEDRA from the published centroid and the 2026 overview chip, tightened to exclude the older Riyadh districts to the east. SEDRA's box is an estimate, no boundary is published.
Sindalah: the island that opened and never opened.
Revealed December 2022 with guests due 'early 2024'. The NEOM board unveiled it to invited guests in October 2024. By March 2025 the reporting was 'largely unfinished'; by September 2025 an empty marina; by June 2026 Red Sea Global was taking it over to 'assess how to finish it'.
December 2022: 413 hotel rooms, 333 serviced apartments, an 86-berth marina, guests from early 2024.
July 2023: NEOM's CEO, construction 'at an advanced stage', first visitors Q1 2024.
October 2024: 'officially unveiled' by the NEOM board to a 'first wave of invited guests'; the scale restated as 440 rooms, 88 villas, 218 apartments.
March to September 2025: Futurism, Semafor and AGBI report the island unfinished, closed, marina empty, construction ongoing; the WSJ is cited on the costs.
No percent-complete figure was ever published.
November 2017, 1 m: a bare island with a lagoon.
May 2021, 0.5 m: worker camp, first cut-and-fill, the lagoon still natural.
January 2023, 0.5 m: golf course grassed, marina dredged with quay walls, three hotel clusters at structural-frame stage, a second worker camp. This is the last free sub-metre capture; it is fifteen months before the first stated opening.
10 m series: disturbed land jumps from 6 to 41 percent in the third quarter of 2021 as marine and golf works start, reaches 78 percent by September 2022, and holds near 70 percent through April 2025. The green fraction goes from zero to 26 percent in the same September 2022 quarter, the golf course, and holds at 24 to 30 percent for eleven quarters.
Then it stops. September 2025: green 1.6 percent. November 2025: 1.9. February 2026: 0.6. April 2026: 0.2. August 2026: 0.1. The disturbed fraction falls with it, from 69 to 42 percent, as the dead course reads like sand again. Nothing in the public record announces this; AGBI's 'no sign of life' piece is dated 29 September 2025, the day after the scene that first shows it.
Box: the island coastline padded 300 m (34.700 to 34.727 E, 28.036 to 28.058 N). Baseline scene February 2019. Hover a marker for the claim.
Every date slipped; then the green went out.
The record has five stated opening dates between early 2024 and end 2024, all missed. Fifteen months before the first of them, sub-metre imagery shows structural frames. Nothing free after January 2023 can show whether the hotels were finished. But the 10 m series adds a fact the record only implies: the island's irrigated green, a quarter of its land for nearly three years, was gone by the end of September 2025 and had not returned by August 2026. Whatever the handover to Red Sea Global brings, it starts from a dead course.
The dated claims used on this chart
| Date | Kind | What was said, or what happened | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-05-01 | AWARD | Golf course sub-award SAR 153m, complete Mar 2022 | source |
| 2022-06-17 | AWARD | Hotel clusters 3-6 tendered; completion Dec 2023 / Nov 2024 | source |
| 2022-12-05 | SAID | Reveal: 413 rooms, 333 apartments, 86 berths; guests 'early 2024' | source |
| 2023-07-06 | SAID | NEOM CEO: construction 'at an advanced stage', first visitors Q1 2024 | source |
| 2024-03-31 | MISSED | 'Early 2024' opening passes unmet (FT, via Niche: 'failed to open to the public as planned in early 2024') | source |
| 2024-10-27 | DONE | 'Officially unveiled' by the NEOM board to a 'first wave of invited guests'; scale restated 440 rooms / 88 villas / 218 apartments | source |
| 2025-03-10 | SAID | Futurism, reporting on the WSJ audit story: 'still largely unfinished', hotels and golf not open to the public | source |
| 2025-09-29 | SAID | AGBI: marina empty, hotels unopened, construction ongoing | source |
| 2026-06-18 | SAID | RSG CEO: not yet handed over, 'shouldn't have opened like that' | source |
Quarterly series (Sentinel-2 L2A, least-cloudy scene per quarter)
| Quarter | Scene date | Cloud | Land | Disturbed | Dark | Green |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019Q1 | 2019-02-10 | 0% | 10% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q2 | 2019-04-16 | 0% | 12% | 3.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q3 | 2019-09-23 | 0% | 12% | 4.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q4 | 2019-12-17 | 0% | 12% | 3.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q1 | 2020-01-16 | 0% | 12% | 4.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q2 | 2020-04-20 | 0% | 12% | 4.9% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q3 | 2020-09-12 | 0% | 12% | 5.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q4 | 2020-10-22 | 0% | 12% | 5.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q1 | 2021-01-05 | 0% | 12% | 5.7% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q2 | 2021-04-15 | 0% | 12% | 6.0% | 0.6% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q3 | 2021-09-22 | 0% | 12% | 41.1% | 10.4% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q4 | 2021-11-26 | 0% | 11% | 26.7% | 5.9% | 0.0% |
| 2022Q1 | 2022-02-14 | 1% | 12% | 37.9% | 10.7% | 1.0% |
| 2022Q2 | 2022-04-15 | 1% | 12% | 42.3% | 11.8% | 5.8% |
| 2022Q3 | 2022-09-22 | 0% | 12% | 77.6% | 6.6% | 26.4% |
| 2022Q4 | 2022-12-16 | 0% | 12% | 71.0% | 2.1% | 27.1% |
| 2023Q1 | 2023-03-01 | 0% | 12% | 70.5% | 1.4% | 26.5% |
| 2023Q2 | 2023-04-05 | 0% | 12% | 67.6% | 0.8% | 26.7% |
| 2023Q3 | 2023-09-12 | 0% | 26% | 70.7% | 3.8% | 17.9% |
| 2023Q4 | 2023-11-16 | 0% | 11% | 72.7% | 6.7% | 27.0% |
| 2024Q1 | 2024-01-20 | 0% | 12% | 75.4% | 8.0% | 27.1% |
| 2024Q2 | 2024-04-24 | 0% | 11% | 68.7% | 3.8% | 28.6% |
| 2024Q3 | 2024-09-01 | 0% | nan% | nan% | nan% | nan% |
| 2024Q4 | 2024-10-11 | 0% | 12% | 66.8% | 2.4% | 24.4% |
| 2025Q1 | 2025-01-29 | 0% | 12% | 72.1% | 4.3% | 26.2% |
| 2025Q2 | 2025-04-04 | 0% | 11% | 68.5% | 0.8% | 29.7% |
| 2025Q3 | 2025-09-28 | 0% | 12% | 42.4% | 3.3% | 1.6% |
| 2025Q4 | 2025-11-10 | 0% | 12% | 43.6% | 4.3% | 1.9% |
| 2026Q1 | 2026-02-18 | 0% | 11% | 50.8% | 2.7% | 0.6% |
| 2026Q2 | 2026-04-19 | 1% | 12% | 41.5% | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| 2026Q3 | 2026-08-24 | 0% | 13% | 49.5% | 0.7% | 0.1% |
Sub-metre captures available over this site (Esri World Imagery Wayback, per-point metadata)
| Captured | Resolution | Source | Released |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-10-22 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2014-02-20 |
| 2012-07-11 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2016-10-12 |
| 2017-11-21 | 0.31 m | DigitalGlobe | 2020-01-30 |
| 2021-09-05 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2022-02-02 |
| 2021-05-09 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2022-12-14 |
| 2023-01-23 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2023-11-01 |
Shura: 'operational by end 2023', roofed by 2025.
The hub island of The Red Sea, eleven hotels under Foster + Partners' Coral Bloom, reached by a 1.2 km bridge. The bridge opened on time in October 2022. The island did not.
August 2017: the destination's first phase complete by Q4 2022.
June 2021: bridge awarded; all 16 Phase 1 hotels 'by the end of 2023'.
May 2022: Shura 'fully operational by end 2023'.
August 2023: 'live on 15 of the 17 assets', complete in Q4 2024.
May 2025: Phase One target 'end of 2025'. The first Shura hotel opened November 2025; by July 2026 five Shura resorts were LEED-certified and six more were preparing to open.
October 2015, 0.46 m: a natural sand island with mangrove edges.
October 2023, 0.5 m: the entire island re-cut with lagoons and canals, a road network, a marina basin, and hotel clusters with structures at every one, plus a large worker camp. Three months before 'operational by end 2023'.
April 2025, 0.34 m: golf fairways grassed, clusters roofed, villa rings complete on the western arm, the marina fitted out. Seven months before the first hotel opened.
10 m series: the box's land share rises from 73 to 81 percent between 2019 and early 2021 as edges are reclaimed and dredging plumes spread; disturbed land climbs from 3 percent (2019) to 25 percent (March 2021), settles in the teens and twenties while the island is shaped, then jumps to 46 percent in October 2024, the quarter the golf course was being grassed (green appears that quarter and rises to 2.5 percent of a box that is mostly reef and sea). Dark fabric, roofs and asphalt, rises from 2 to 13 percent between mid-2024 and 2026.
Box: the OSM island polygon plus the bridge to the mainland landing (36.935 to 37.010 E, 25.485 to 25.522 N). Baseline scene February 2019. Hover a marker for the claim.
Two years late, and visibly so two years out.
The May 2022 statement that Shura would be fully operational by end 2023 was contradicted by the October 2023 capture, which shows an island still being shaped. The August 2023 'live on 15 of 17 assets' is consistent with that image if 'live' means under construction. The April 2025 capture shows a resort close to finished, and the openings followed within a year. Here the imagery would have moved the expected date by about two years, and it would have done so in 2023.
The dated claims used on this chart
| Date | Kind | What was said, or what happened | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-08-01 | SAID | Announcement: first phase complete by Q4 2022 | source |
| 2021-06-09 | AWARD | Bridge awarded to Archirodon; 16 Phase 1 hotels 'by end of 2023' | source |
| 2022-05-06 | SAID | TRSDC (Tracy Lanza): Shura 'fully operational by end 2023' | source |
| 2022-10-18 | DONE | Bridge officially opened | source |
| 2023-08-04 | SAID | RSG: 'live on 15 of the 17 assets', complete Q4 2024 | source |
| 2023-12-31 | MISSED | 'Fully operational by end 2023' passes unmet | source |
| 2024-10-09 | SAID | Shura Links grassing ~50%, opening 2025 | source |
| 2025-05-01 | SAID | Phase One completion target 'end of 2025' | source |
| 2025-09-30 | DONE | Shura Links golf course opened | source |
| 2025-11-01 | DONE | The Red Sea EDITION opens, first Shura hotel (November 2025) | source |
| 2026-05-20 | DONE | Four Seasons opens (originally early 2025) | source |
| 2026-07-14 | SAID | Five Shura resorts LEED Platinum certified; six more preparing to open (11 total) | source |
Quarterly series (Sentinel-2 L2A, least-cloudy scene per quarter)
| Quarter | Scene date | Cloud | Land | Disturbed | Dark | Green |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019Q1 | 2019-02-04 | 0% | 73% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q2 | 2019-06-19 | 0% | 76% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q3 | 2019-08-23 | 0% | 78% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2019Q4 | 2019-12-06 | 0% | 76% | 3.4% | 0.5% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q1 | 2020-03-25 | 0% | 74% | 7.7% | 1.8% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q2 | 2020-06-08 | 0% | 74% | 7.2% | 0.5% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q3 | 2020-09-01 | 0% | 76% | 10.1% | 0.8% | 0.0% |
| 2020Q4 | 2020-12-10 | 0% | 77% | 16.5% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q1 | 2021-03-03 | 0% | 81% | 24.8% | 3.1% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q2 | 2021-06-23 | 0% | 81% | 21.4% | 2.8% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q3 | 2021-08-17 | 0% | 81% | 14.7% | 2.4% | 0.0% |
| 2021Q4 | 2021-11-05 | 0% | 81% | 23.3% | 4.1% | 0.0% |
| 2022Q1 | 2022-02-18 | 0% | 81% | 12.2% | 0.5% | 0.0% |
| 2022Q2 | 2022-04-29 | 0% | 81% | 14.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2022Q3 | 2022-07-03 | 0% | 80% | 22.0% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| 2022Q4 | 2022-10-04 | 0% | 81% | 27.4% | 2.8% | 0.0% |
| 2023Q1 | 2023-03-13 | 0% | 80% | 20.1% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| 2023Q2 | 2023-06-28 | 0% | 79% | 16.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2023Q3 | 2023-08-02 | 0% | 79% | 15.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2023Q4 | 2023-10-21 | 0% | 80% | 23.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| 2024Q1 | 2024-01-04 | 0% | 80% | 24.3% | 1.5% | 0.1% |
| 2024Q2 | 2024-04-18 | 0% | 79% | 18.6% | 2.0% | 0.3% |
| 2024Q3 | 2024-07-27 | 0% | 79% | 31.3% | 1.3% | 0.2% |
| 2024Q4 | 2024-10-13 | 0% | 80% | 46.3% | 7.7% | 0.4% |
| 2025Q1 | 2025-01-28 | 0% | 80% | 44.9% | 12.9% | 0.9% |
| 2025Q2 | 2025-06-27 | 0% | 81% | 32.0% | 8.2% | 0.7% |
| 2025Q3 | 2025-07-27 | 0% | 81% | 29.9% | 8.6% | 1.0% |
| 2025Q4 | 2025-11-04 | 0% | 80% | 48.8% | 12.2% | 1.9% |
| 2026Q1 | 2026-02-07 | 0% | 79% | 35.9% | 8.3% | 2.1% |
| 2026Q2 | 2026-06-09 | 0% | 79% | 43.7% | 8.5% | 2.5% |
| 2026Q3 | 2026-08-18 | 0% | 79% | 48.5% | 11.7% | 1.9% |
Sub-metre captures available over this site (Esri World Imagery Wayback, per-point metadata)
| Captured | Resolution | Source | Released |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-09-08 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2014-02-20 |
| 2012-05-07 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2016-10-12 |
| 2015-08-03 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2018-01-31 |
| 2015-08-10 | 0.46 m | DigitalGlobe | 2020-01-30 |
| 2015-10-08 | 0.46 m | Maxar | 2022-02-02 |
| 2023-10-02 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2024-09-19 |
| 2025-04-05 | 0.34 m | Vantor | 2026-04-30 |
SEDRA: sold, built and handed over on a visible timeline.
ROSHN's first community, 20 million square metres and more than 30,000 homes in eight phases, north of Riyadh between Princess Nourah University and the airport. The claims here are sales launches, handovers and resident counts, not opening dates.
November 2020: SAR 1.6 billion of Phase 1 contracts, more than 4,000 units.
October 2021: off-plan sales open, Phase 1 of 4,500 homes. November 2022: first handover, 'ahead of scheduled time' (no original date was ever published).
September 2023: China Harbour, SR 7.7 billion across Sedra and Warefa over 45 months. Phase 3 sales October 2023, Phase 4 April 2024, Phase 5 September 2025.
February 2025: Sedra 1A, about 3,000 homes, 'majority handed over in 2024'. June 2025: 'first phase completed'.
October 2025: 'over 1,000 families'. August 2026: '3,000+ families', second-phase handovers under way.
October 2020, 0.5 m: bare land east of ROSHN Front, a month before the Phase 1 award. Only the mall and a rail depot stand.
December 2021, 0.31 m: the Phase 1 fan of streets is laid and thousands of villa frames are up in three clusters, two months after sales opened. A batching plant and camp sit at the north.
April and September 2023, 0.31 m: Phase 1 roofed and landscaped, Phase 2 rising north of it. This is the period of the first handovers.
2025 captures: successive phases spreading north toward the airport, matching the sequence of sales launches.
10 m series: disturbed land leaves the 4 to 5 percent noise floor in the quarter of the Phase 1 award (10 percent, November 2020), reaches 14 percent as the frames go up (November 2021), 22 percent at the first handovers (February 2023) and 37 percent by mid-2024; the dark fraction, which asphalt and roofs drive, follows two to three quarters behind, from 2 percent in 2020 to 12 percent in 2025. Green stays at 1 to 4 percent: a villa community, not a golf course.
Box: an estimate around the published centroid (46.725 to 46.775 E, 24.840 to 24.905 N), tightened on the 2026 overview to exclude older districts to the east; later phases extend beyond it. Baseline scene March 2019. Hover a marker for the claim.
The build matches the story. The counts are out of reach.
Nothing in the SEDRA record is contradicted by the imagery: contracts preceded earthworks, sales preceded frames by weeks, handovers preceded roofs and landscaping by months. What the imagery cannot do is confirm 'majority of 3,000 handed over' or '3,000+ families', because a roofed villa and an occupied one look the same from orbit. The one testable date, first handover in November 2022, is consistent with the April 2023 capture.
The dated claims used on this chart
| Date | Kind | What was said, or what happened | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-11-24 | AWARD | SAR 1.6bn Phase 1 contracts, >4,000 units | source |
| 2021-02-08 | SAID | SR 3.5bn in seven contracts; Phase 1 sales 'by the middle of this year' | source |
| 2021-10-07 | DONE | Off-plan sales open, Phase 1 = 4,500 homes | source |
| 2022-10-16 | SAID | Phase 2 sales, 2,172 homes | source |
| 2022-11-21 | DONE | First handover, 'ahead of scheduled time' | source |
| 2023-09-11 | AWARD | China Harbour SR 7.7bn, Sedra + Warefa, 45 months | source |
| 2023-10-01 | DONE | Phase 3 sales, 3,438 homes | source |
| 2024-04-01 | DONE | Phase 4 sales, 4,860 homes on 1.9M m2 | source |
| 2025-02-01 | SAID | Sedra 1A ~3,000 homes, 'majority handed over in 2024' | source |
| 2025-06-18 | SAID | ROSHN: 'first phase completed'; contracts > SAR 19bn | source |
| 2025-09-18 | DONE | Phase 5 sales, 2,000+ homes | source |
| 2025-10-01 | SAID | 'Over 1,000 families' resident | source |
| 2026-07-03 | DONE | Second-phase handovers begin | source |
| 2026-08-19 | SAID | '3,000+ families' resident | source |
Quarterly series (Sentinel-2 L2A, least-cloudy scene per quarter)
| Quarter | Scene date | Cloud | Land | Disturbed | Dark | Green |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019Q1 | 2019-03-02 | 0% | 100% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.1% |
| 2019Q2 | 2019-06-30 | 0% | 100% | 4.0% | 0.1% | 0.9% |
| 2019Q3 | 2019-09-28 | 0% | 100% | 4.2% | 0.2% | 1.0% |
| 2019Q4 | 2019-10-08 | 0% | 100% | 4.0% | 0.2% | 1.2% |
| 2020Q1 | 2020-03-16 | 0% | 100% | 4.7% | 0.9% | 1.6% |
| 2020Q2 | 2020-04-25 | 0% | 100% | 4.8% | 0.8% | 1.7% |
| 2020Q3 | 2020-08-28 | 0% | 100% | 7.4% | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| 2020Q4 | 2020-11-11 | 0% | 100% | 10.0% | 2.0% | 1.8% |
| 2021Q1 | 2021-02-14 | 0% | 100% | 9.0% | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| 2021Q2 | 2021-05-30 | 0% | 100% | 8.7% | 1.0% | 1.5% |
| 2021Q3 | 2021-07-24 | 0% | 100% | 8.9% | 1.2% | 1.7% |
| 2021Q4 | 2021-11-26 | 0% | 100% | 14.2% | 3.5% | 2.7% |
| 2022Q1 | 2022-03-16 | 0% | 100% | 10.7% | 2.2% | 2.5% |
| 2022Q2 | 2022-05-10 | 0% | 100% | 10.0% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| 2022Q3 | 2022-09-02 | 0% | 100% | 13.2% | 2.2% | 2.0% |
| 2022Q4 | 2022-10-17 | 0% | 100% | 16.7% | 3.3% | 2.2% |
| 2023Q1 | 2023-02-24 | 0% | 100% | 22.0% | 5.2% | 3.4% |
| 2023Q2 | 2023-04-30 | 0% | 100% | 18.1% | 2.2% | 2.6% |
| 2023Q3 | 2023-07-14 | 0% | 100% | 21.6% | 2.7% | 2.1% |
| 2023Q4 | 2023-10-17 | 0% | 100% | 24.7% | 5.9% | 2.4% |
| 2024Q1 | 2024-03-10 | 0% | 100% | 30.4% | 6.3% | 2.4% |
| 2024Q2 | 2024-05-09 | 0% | 100% | 36.0% | 6.2% | 3.6% |
| 2024Q3 | 2024-07-03 | 0% | 100% | 37.0% | 5.0% | 2.0% |
| 2024Q4 | 2024-10-16 | 0% | 100% | 35.1% | 7.6% | 2.0% |
| 2025Q1 | 2025-01-19 | 0% | 100% | 36.9% | 11.9% | 3.7% |
| 2025Q2 | 2025-05-09 | 0% | 100% | 31.2% | 5.5% | 2.2% |
| 2025Q3 | 2025-07-18 | 0% | 100% | 35.8% | 7.1% | 2.4% |
| 2025Q4 | 2025-10-23 | 0% | 100% | 36.6% | 10.5% | 2.2% |
| 2026Q1 | 2026-03-25 | 0% | 100% | 34.4% | 10.6% | 3.3% |
| 2026Q2 | 2026-05-24 | 0% | 100% | 30.3% | 6.6% | 2.4% |
| 2026Q3 | 2026-07-03 | 0% | 100% | 35.6% | 7.8% | 2.6% |
Sub-metre captures available over this site (Esri World Imagery Wayback, per-point metadata)
| Captured | Resolution | Source | Released |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-10-04 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2014-02-20 |
| 2010-08-16 | 0.5 m | DigitalGlobe | 2016-10-12 |
| 2014-12-06 | 0.31 m | DigitalGlobe | 2017-02-27 |
| 2016-12-04 | 0.31 m | DigitalGlobe | 2018-01-31 |
| 2018-11-01 | 0.31 m | DigitalGlobe | 2020-01-30 |
| 2020-03-24 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2020-11-18 |
| 2020-10-27 | 0.5 m | Maxar | 2022-02-02 |
| 2021-12-07 | 0.31 m | Maxar | 2022-10-12 |
| 2023-04-02 | 0.31 m | Maxar | 2023-10-11 |
| 2023-09-08 | 0.31 m | Maxar | 2024-09-19 |
| 2025-03-30 | 0.34 m | Vantor | 2025-12-18 |
| 2025-09-23 | 0.5 m | Vantor | 2026-03-26 |
The free record has holes, and they are not where you expect.
Sub-metre imagery is plentiful over Riyadh and scarce over the Red Sea coast. The 10 m record is complete everywhere, cloud-free almost every quarter, and blind to anything smaller than a road.
| Site | Sub-metre captures 2019 to 2026 | Latest sub-metre capture | 10 m scenes, cloud-free | What the 10 m series resolved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sindalah (NEOM) | 3: Sep 2021, May 2021, Jan 2023 | 2023-01-23 | 31 of 31 quarters | Works from Q3 2021; golf grassed Sept 2022; green lost Q3 2025 and not back by Aug 2026. Cannot see hotel completion. |
| Shura Island (The Red Sea) | 2: Oct 2023, Apr 2025 | 2025-04-05 | 31 of 31 quarters | Reshaping and reclamation from 2020, bridge 2022, urban fabric from 2023. Cannot see hotel fit-out or opening. |
| SEDRA (ROSHN), north Riyadh | 7: Mar 2020, Oct 2020, Dec 2021, Apr 2023, Sep 2023, Mar 2025, Sep 2025 | 2025-09-23 | 31 of 31 quarters | Phase-by-phase arrival of urban fabric from 2021. Cannot count homes or see occupancy. |
- Sub-metre refresh is uneven. SEDRA received ten captures between 2019 and 2025; Shura received two after 2015; Sindalah received five, the last in January 2023. A claim made after the last capture cannot be tested at sub-metre resolution for free.
- Ten metres sees earthworks, reclamation, roads, golf courses and the arrival of urban fabric. It saw Sindalah's works begin in the third quarter of 2021 (disturbed land 6 to 41 percent in one quarter), Shura's lagoons being cut through 2020 and 2021, and SEDRA's phases spreading north (disturbed 5 percent in 2019, 37 percent by 2024). It cannot count villas, tell a frame from a roof, or say whether a hotel is open.
- Cloud is not the constraint here. Every site had a scene under 20 percent cloud in nearly every quarter; most were under 2 percent.
- Capture dates matter more than release dates. Groundwork, our earlier project, labels frames with release dates and says so; this study used the metadata service to get the capture date, and the two differ by six to eighteen months.
- Irrigated green is the sharpest 10 m signal on a desert site, sharper than buildings. Sindalah's golf course grassing (Sept 2022), Shura's (Oct 2024, matching the 'grassing 50 percent' statement) and Sindalah's dying back (2025) are all unmistakable in the series, and none of them needed sub-metre imagery.
Who would use an observed number.
We ran a second study alongside this one, on who releases money against construction progress in the Kingdom and who certifies that progress today.
The short answer: in off-plan sales the escrow bank pays on a document signed by the developer, the developer's own engineering consultant and a chartered accountant; in government work the supervising consultant approves monthly measured settlements; in bank lending to developers the release is contractual and the verifier is not published. No rule names an independent measurer, and no firm in the Kingdom sells one into those release points. What is sold is capture tooling for contractors and owners.
That is the context for this study. An observed, dated view of a site is not a certificate. It is the thing a certificate could be checked against, and today nobody does the checking.
Read the companion study: who releases the moneyWhat this study can say.
Free imagery catches the date slips. It does not catch the quantity claims.
Every completion date in the record for Sindalah and Shura was contradicted by the image on that date, and the contradiction was visible at 10 m as well as at sub-metre. A dated, independent observation would have flagged both slips a year or more before the press did, and it would have flagged Sindalah's shutdown in the same quarter it happened: the green went in the third quarter of 2025, the first 'shut down' report came in July 2025.
The quantity claims, homes handed over and families resident at SEDRA, are not testable from orbit at any free resolution. They need the count of roofed plots and, for occupancy, something other than imagery. That is the boundary of the method: orbit answers 'is it built', not 'is it delivered'.
The gap in the free sub-metre record over the Red Sea coast is the practical finding for anyone who wants to do this seriously: the 10 m series is the continuous instrument, and a paid sub-metre scene is a purchase to be made on the date a claim is due, not a subscription.
What we got wrong first, and what this cannot say.
Corrections made during the verification pass
- A separate pass re-opened all 35 charted claims: 25 supported as written, 9 partly, 1 not supported. Every page was reached, three at corrected URLs.
- Shura, July 2026: our label said 'five of eleven resorts operating'; the page says five resorts earned LEED Platinum and six more are preparing to open. Relabelled. This was the one claim not supported.
- Sindalah, October 2024: the NEOM release does not say 'grand opening' or 'VIP'; it says 'officially unveiled' and 'first wave of invited guests'. Relabelled, and the lede changed to match.
- Sindalah, March 2025: 'still largely unfinished' is Futurism's own sentence; the WSJ is cited there for the cost and audit material. Attribution corrected.
- Shura, May 2022: the wording is 'fully operational by end 2023', not 'complete and operational'. Speaker is Tracy Lanza of TRSDC. Two Gulf News URLs had truncated IDs and were corrected.
- Shura, November 2025: the EDITION opening is dated to the month only by the source; the day we had used was not on any page. Marker moved to the month.
- SEDRA, October 2022: 'construction is on track' is not on the Arab News page used; dropped. SEDRA, September 2023: the 6,700-unit figure is not on the MEED page used; dropped from the label. SEDRA, February 2025: the Gulf Construction page is dated 1 February, not 13; marker moved.
- Sindalah, early-2024 slip: the Niche Magazine URL on file was dead; the same article at its live slug carries the FT attribution.
Limits
- The 'disturbed' and 'dark' fractions are relative to one baseline scene per site and to a fixed box; they are indicators of change, not measurements of built area. Their absolute levels are not comparable between sites.
- The SEDRA box is an estimate and includes land later phases had not reached; fractions there understate the intensity of change in the built phases.
- Wayback capture dates come from the metadata service at one point per site (the centroid); a mosaic can carry different capture dates across a site.
- Claims rest on the pages that could be opened. Several primaries refused the fetch (WSJ, FT, Bloomberg, SPA, Red Sea Global, Construction Week) and are carried through the secondary pages that quoted them, marked as such in the research files.
- No percent-complete figure exists in the public record for any of the three sites, so no observed-versus-stated percentage is offered.
- Two Sindalah scenes are flagged: 2024Q3 had no valid pixels over the box (a partial tile) and is left blank; 2023Q3's water classifier read reef flats as land (land share 26 percent against 11 to 13 percent in every other quarter), which does not affect the disturbed or green fractions of the island itself.