274,679
Students in schools
That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
Back to Muscat
Muscat · Topic file
Can Muscat carry stronger schools, clinics and everyday services?
The story is not only about investment. It is also about whether families can build their lives — schooling, healthcare, daily services — without having to default back to Muscat. For Muscat, the honest read comes down to students in schools and hospital beds.
4,745
Hospital beds
That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
The numbers
Where Muscat stands today, chart by chart
Students in schools
Total students in schools by governorate in the 2025/2026 academic year.
NCSI Statistical Year Book 2026, Schools, Classrooms, Students and Teachers by Governorate (grand total table).
Hospital beds
Total government and private hospital beds by governorate in 2025.
NCSI Statistical Year Book 2026, No. Of Government & Private Sectors Hospitals & Health Units Distributed by Governorates and Number of Bed.
The trend over time
How Muscat got here
Students in schools
How many children the governorate's schools are actually carrying each academic year — the simplest stand-in for how much pressure the local education system is under.
2024/25 and 2025/26 totals from the Schools, Classrooms, Students and Teachers by Governorate tables in Statistical Year Books 2025 and 2026.
These are academic-year counts, not calendar years.
Hospital beds
Hospital beds in the governorate, public and private combined. A blunt but useful read on how deep the local health system actually is.
2024 and 2025 values from Table 2-17, Statistical Year Books 2025 and 2026. Totals here cover government and private hospital beds only — health-centre beds are not added in.
Reading the charts
What the latest tables are really saying
- Muscat is showing 274,679 on students in schools. That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
- Muscat is showing 4,745 on hospital beds. That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
- MOHUP's Urban Strategy 2040 positions Muscat as a world-class, cosmopolitan and sustainable capital built around compact growth, public transport, business services, tourism, and a stronger metropolitan core. A bigger regional role also means stronger schools and clinics closer to where people actually live.
Why this file matters
The strategy Muscat is being measured against
Whether schools and hospitals are keeping up — the simplest read on whether people can build a life here.
MOHUP's Urban Strategy 2040 positions Muscat as a world-class, cosmopolitan and sustainable capital built around compact growth, public transport, business services, tourism, and a stronger metropolitan core.
- Ghala is meant to emerge as a new central business district for Muscat.
- The strategy explicitly calls for denser development around public transport nodes and a broader shift away from pure private-car dependence.
- Finance, trade, hospitality and tourism remain the core city-economy functions in the official spatial role.
Related topic files
Five more ways into the Muscat execution map
These linked files cover the other live tests in the same governorate, so the numbers on capital, jobs, services, tourism, utilities, and urban buildout can be read together instead of in isolation.
Muscat topic file
Capital deployment
How much money is actually being committed, and whether the property market is picking up the signal.
Muscat topic file
Urban buildout and housing
Population, permits and whether the place is actually being built fast enough for the role it has been handed.
Muscat topic file
Jobs and enterprise
The jobs and businesses that show whether the governorate has a working economy, or just a project list.
Muscat topic file
Tourism and place economy
Hotels, occupancy, and whether the place is becoming a real destination or just adding rooms.
Muscat topic file
Infrastructure and utilities
Roads, water and the quiet base layer that usually decides whether any of the rest of it actually works.