The Khobar Water Tower is the most recognisable structure in the city — a 90-metre concrete column with a flying-saucer top, built in the early 1980s and visible from much of the central Corniche district. There is a small viewing platform inside the head, currently closed to visitors but reopened periodically.
The base is set in a small park on the seafront and the area around it is well-lit at night, when the tower head is illuminated in shifting colours. It functions as Khobar's de facto skyline emblem in the same way that the much larger Kingdom Tower stands for Riyadh — a useful orientation point and a worthwhile photograph at dusk.