Salmiya located 12 kilometers southeast of Kuwait City, is one of the largest areas in Kuwait consisting of both commercial and residential areas with a population of 223,640 as of January 2007. It is arguably Kuwait's flagship district being a major cultural and commercial hub. It is well connected to the rest of the country having a multitude of significant highways and roads passing through it en-route to the capital, Kuwait City.

Salmiya is administratively divided into 12 blocks. The blocks located closer to the interior tend to be mostly residential whilst those located besides the coast (the gulf of Arabian Sea) have a great deal of commercial and up-scale residential real estate, especially those through which the Gulf Road passes through. The interior residential areas boast a huge proportion of expatriates, comprising mainly of those from the Indian sub-continent and Non-Gulf Arabs.

Salmiya, has been a model district in the context of modernization; it has undertaken a major face lift in recent times primarily due to ever-expanding commercial real estate on the Gulf Road, the popular Salem Al-Mubarak Shopping strip and its relatively close proximity to the capital. The boom in real estate in Salmiya has seen its demographics being constantly on the move. Increasing rental prices have gradually pushed out its working class expatriate community towards the interior districts of Kuwait.

The influx of expatriates to Salmiya is of historical importance dating as far back as the 1960s. Salmiya was gradually rebuilt and re-populated after the horrors of the Gulf War. The old rugged 3-storied buildings and open fields have given way to a high density layouts of high-rise apartments and complexes. The beach front, once a hub and harbor for the fishing and pearl-diving community now transformed into a well-developed and modern bustling commercial avenue.