Khamis Mushait is a city in south-west Saudi Arabia, located 35 minutes east of Abha, the provincial seat of the Asir province in southwest Saudi Arabia. Until the 1960's Khamis Mushait was a small town of less than 50,000 servicing the surrounding mild-climate agricultural region. Since then its population has grown eight-fold to reach 446,467 (2004 census). The city used to be the capital of Shahrani tribe, one of the biggest tribes in Arabia, nowadays, the tribe populate almost 70% of the grown city. The city's name comes from the weekly market that is held each Thursday, and "Khamis" simply is the arabic word for Thursday. Whereas the word "Mushait" refers to the leading family of Shahran tribe, and the current Mayor of Khamis Mushait is Saeed bin Abdulaziz bin Mushait.