Like all major metropolitan centers, especially those of great religious and historic significance, Madinah derived much of its character from the diversity of is population and the way that diversity manifested itself in the social fabric, traditions, architecture, culture and economic life, Not only its inhabitants, but is visitors no less, talk about so many distinctive aspects about the Prophet's chosen city. Although highly modern now, there is still a great deal to tell even the passer by that he or she is in that unique city.

A particularly enriching factor in the history of Madinah has been the number of those who preferred to live there rather than in their home towns, villages or countries. Many merchants, ulama, and ordinary people from all parts of the Muslim world have, over the centuries, swelled the population both in number and in kind. Like its sister city, Makkah, Madinah became a microcosm of the entire Muslim world, infusing the original people of Madinah with all kinds of riches : spiritual, social, cultural, scientific, economic, etc.

The diversity of Madinah's population was a feature from the beginning In Pre-Islamic times, when the population was by come estimates between twenty and sixty thousand, there was a variety of social religious and ethnic affiliations. In Islamic times the population continued in the same way for some time, but now it was the Muslim world, with all its ethnic and sectarian diversity, that continued to Infuse the city.

The upward trend of Madinah's population reversed during the centuries when the Abbasids and Mamluks ruled the Hijaz region. In the Ottoman period, thanks to the increased care and interest of the Sultans, numbers started rising again, reaching between sixteen and twenty thousand inhabitants. The building of the Hijaz railway in the early twentieth century took the population to thirty thousand, but numbers again decreased in the aftermath of the First World War. Finally, under Saudi rule the numbers started increasing by an annual 10% in the sixties and seventies of the last century; in the statistics of 1998 the population hiked to 817, 137.

The architectural composition of Madinah naturally reflected the diversity of the people's cultural background, despite the encroachment of modernity. Like Makkah, Madinah continued to be centered around its major holy site, the Prophet's Mosque - up to today this is clearly visible in the way the city 'center forms circles around the Haram. Commercial buildings, shops, libraries, homes, and 'awkaf (endowment) housing, all surround the Mosque as if in constant prayer. Many of the buildings in that area or elsewhere in the city still show the diverse façades of Hijazi and Turkish design in addition to other forms.

Before Islam, the quarters of Madinah used to grow separately from each other following water sources, but in the Islamic period those quarters grew closer, thus forming the first truly Islamic city in history. A distinctive feature of the Madinah residential areas, something that sets it apart even from other cities in Hijaz, is the system of 'ahwash', or enclosures. Unlike the other major system of 'harah' - where houses border on a single main street - the 'ahwash' system, though also with a main street , has groups of houses within a wall, each with a gate that opens onto a space linking the houses and allowing residents to interact more closely like an extended family. Social gatherings for special occasions as well as daily business can take place in the spaces open to the surrounding houses. Many of those 'ahwash' have been eradicated as a result of modernization and expansion, but a number still survive. Some of these have names, such as 'Hawsh Khamis', 'Hawsh Al Gashash', 'Hawsh Al Magharibah', etc. The size of an 'ahwash' varies according to its distance from the Prophet's Mosque, the smaller ones being closer while those further away are larger.