Riyadh: Western travelers and Orientalists of the 18th and 19th centuries provide a vivid historical record of the First Saudi State, documenting a society marked by exceptional hospitality, military courage, and a sophisticated city-state model. Accounts by figures such as Carsten Niebuhr and Johann Ludwig Burckhardt highlight the prosperity of trade hubs such as Jeddah and the spiritual prominence of the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.

According to Saudi Press Agency, these memoirs describe Diriyah not merely as a political capital, but as an architectural marvel of stone and mud brick set along the fertile Wadi Hanifah. Travelers were particularly struck by the simplicity of life, the nobility of Arabian horses, and the egalitarian character of the imams, who famously opened their councils to all citizens without distinction.