largest number of pilgrims are from Asia

Asian countries have sent the largest number of pilgrims this year while New Zealand pilgrims had to take the longest flight of 24 hours to reach the Kingdom. Sudanese pilgrims got the credit of conducting the longest ship journey lasting 10 hours to reach Jeddah Islamic Port. A total of 1,325,189 Hajis came by air, 36,094 by land and 12,923 by sea. New Zealand pilgrims had to spent 24 hours on plane due to lack of direct flight from the country to Saudi Arabia. New Zealand has sent 400 pilgrims for Haj this year. Even after traveling on speedy ships, Sudanese have taken 10 hours to reach the Kingdom. About 12,000



Sudanese pilgrims, half of the country’s Haj quota of 24,000, arrived by sea. Indonesia has sent the largest number of 186,000 pilgrims this year after a 20 percent cut imposed by the Saudi government because of the Haram expansion project. The country used to send 225,000 pilgrims before the imposition of 20 percent cut in the number of Hajis. Georgia sent the smallest number of 38 pilgrims from a quota of 300 while the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago sent 50 pilgrims for this Haj. China, which is the largest country in the world with a population of 1.5 billion, sent only 1,000 pilgrims from a quota of 14,000.