United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates sits at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, along a shallow, island-studded stretch of the Gulf coast. Behind the shore, gravel plains and dunes rise to the tall red sands of Liwa on the edge of the Empty Quarter. Al Ain’s oasis has been watered for thousands of years by falaj, channels tapping groundwater. In the east the Hajar Mountains drop to the Gulf of Oman, where Fujairah is the one emirate with no Gulf shoreline.

Before oil, the coastal towns lived from the sea: pearl diving in summer, fishing, and dhow trade with Persia, India and East Africa. Treaties with Britain from 1820 gave the sheikhdoms their old English name, the Trucial States. When Britain left the Gulf, six of them formed a federation in December 1971, and Ras Al Khaimah joined early in 1972. Oil exports from Abu Dhabi had begun in 1962, and within a generation the money had paid for ports, roads, schools and new cities.

Falconry, camel racing and the ayyala, a dance performed with thin canes to the beat of drums, survive beside the glass towers. Dubai grew rich on re-export trade through its vast man-made harbour at Jebel Ali and on an airline that turned the city into a stopover between Europe, Asia and Africa. Abu Dhabi holds most of the federation’s oil. Beyond hydrocarbons, the economy runs on logistics, finance, property, tourism and aluminium smelting.