By Aljohara Zarea

JEDDAH — Every year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proves its continuity in confirming its progress and success in all fields. The nation’s efforts have borne fruit over the years under the shadow of the wise leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The leadership's constant support and patronage of the Saudi people's talents and high ambition was reflected in reaping uncountable successes, through which it helped to further strengthen the country's economy and security.

The Kingdom’s tremendous achievements resulted in breaking several records in 2021, which led to its entry to the Guinness Book of Records several times and which came as an integrated series of continuous entries in the Guinness over the years.

On March 11, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), the Saudi governmental institution mandated and entrusted with seawater desalination and delivery of desalinated water to various regions of the Kingdom and beyond, has entered the Guinness Book of Records by setting a new record as the lowest energy-consuming desalination plant in the world at 2.27 kilowatt-hours per cubic meter of desalinated water.

The water desalination plant will enhance and raise its global leadership in the desalination industry and increase its progress continuity: The SWCC aptly described its success since its inception in the Kingdom, saying: “From the condenser to the largest producer of desalinated water in the world.”

Saudi Arabia is distinguished by the glow of its Vision 2030, which contributed to hosting huge events that dazzled the countries of the world with Saudi skills and which resulted in one of the most exciting festivals in the first months of 2021 — “Noor Riyadh”.

The event illuminated the capital city of the Kingdom, Riyadh, on 18 March, with the beauty and splendor of record-breaking artworks. Two of these artworks, namely "Beacon" and "Star in Motion", that were displayed as part of the celebrations won entry into the Guinness World Records

"Beacon", by Carolina Halatek, consisted of 272,160 LED lights that lit up the city of Riyadh, while Kurt Vermeulen's “Star in Motion” set a world record as the brightest hanging decoration. It was made using 1.2 million lamps suspended at a height of 256 meters in the Kingdom Tower.

Then, on September 23, the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation (SAMF) dazzled the world by unveiling the largest-ever LEGO brick build of a Formula 1 car. Using 500,000 bricks, it beat previous records and entered the Guinness World Records.

The largest LEGO brick F1 car measured 5710 mm x 2048 mm x 1072 mm. It is noteworthy that the car was built for charitable work for the National Platform for Charitable Work (Ehsan). People in the Kingdom were able to purchase LEGO bricks used to build the car model and the proceeds went directly to the Ihsan platform.

The fourth Guinness Record went to Saudi Arabia's pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, which is one of the most important achievements to be mentioned in the list because of its magnificence and the fantastic records that it has set since its opening on October 1. The Saudi pavilion enchanted visitors with its beauty through a picturesque and unique journey embodying Kingdom’s past, present and future, which led to three entries in the Guinness Records.

The Kingdom's pavilion was the second largest at Expo 2020 Dubai after the United Arab Emirates, the host country. In addition, the entire building relied on renewable energy reflecting the Kingdom’s vision of placing sustainability among its most important priorities. The Kingdom has announced its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.

Saudi Arabia' pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai set three records: The longest interactive water feature, measuring 32.234m; the largest interactive lighting display, consisting of 7,798 lights, and the largest LED mirror screen display, measuring 1302.5 m²

Finally, we can't imagine completing the list without the biggest entertainment event ever in the Middle East, Riyadh Season 2, featuring the slogan "Imagine More". After the success of Riyadh Season 1, Turki Al-Sheikh, chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Entertainment Authority, inaugurated Riyadh Season 2 on October 21, which has broken records in the number of visitors with about 8 million to this day.

As a result of its resounding success and breaking of records, the ongoing Riyadh Season 2 has received two certificates from Guinness through the giant slide game "Avalanche", located at the Boulevard Riyadh City zone. It was chosen for being the tallest slide with a height of 22.136 meters. The second record was for having the most number of lanes on a fun slide, which is 24 lanes.