Salman of Saudi Arabia
King of Saudi Arabia since 2015
Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Arabic: سلمان بن عبد العزيز آل سعود, romanized: Salmān ibn ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz Āl Saʻūd; born 31 December 1935) is King of Saudi Arabia, having reigned since 2015. He is a son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia, and a member of the House of Saud.
Salman is the third-oldest living head of state and the oldest living monarch. He is the first Saudi head of state born after the unification of Saudi Arabia.
Salman is a son of King Abdulaziz and Hassa bint Ahmed Al Sudairi, making him one of the Sudairi Seven. He was the deputy governor of Riyadh and later the governor of Riyadh for 48 years from 1963 to 2011. He was then appointed Minister of Defense and was named crown prince in 2012. Salman became king in 2015 upon the death of his half-brother, King Abdullah.
He has a reported personal wealth of at least US$18 billion, which makes him the third wealthiest royal in the world.
Salman's major initiatives as king include the Saudi intervention in the Yemeni Civil War, Saudi Vision 2030, and a 2017 decree allowing Saudi women to drive.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Salman of Saudi Arabia” is king of Saudi Arabia since 2015. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Salman, Saudi and Arabia, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “king of Saudi Arabia since 2015” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q367825. VIAF identifies the subject as 250653000. The Library of Congress control number is no2012079178. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2015, 1963 and 2011.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Salman of Saudi Arabia”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Salman of Saudi Arabia primary sources, Salman of Saudi Arabia archive and Salman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Salman of Saudi Arabia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.