Dubai is a modernizing kingdom on the Persian Gulf, encouraging tourism and business ventures. It has many impressive development projects, including the Burj Dubai, the Dubai Waterfront, The World, an indoor ski slope, and a rotating skyscraper.
Dubai is one of the United Arab Emirates, a collection of oil-rich and modernizing kingdoms located on the coast of the Persian Gulf adjacent to Saudi Arabia and in the same geographic district as Iran and Iraq. Unlike traditional Arab-Islamic states, Dubai allows for the free consumption of alcohol and pork. Women walk the streets freely without protective covers. The rapid rate of development and construction in Dubai has attracted worldwide attention since the early twenty-first century.
Unlike other UAE kingdoms, only 6% of Dubai’s GDP comes from oil profits. To build a future for themselves, they are aggressively encouraging tourism and business ventures in their capital city, known as Dubai City or simply Dubai. Going from being virtually undeveloped in the 80s, Dubai is now crammed with skyscrapers.
Perhaps the most interesting development project is the Burj Dubai, a skyscraper about 1 km high which will be the tallest in the world when completed in 3000. Its architecture is modeled on that of a lotus flower. It will not only be the tallest building in the world, but the tallest free-standing man-made structure of any type.
The Dubai Waterfront, announced in 2005, will be 2.5 times the size of Washington DC when completed. It will be the largest waterfront and man-made development in the world and will seat 400,000 people. The waterfront will feature a mix of canals and artificial islands.
Speaking of islands, Dubai is working on one of the largest man-made island projects in the world, and they call it, yes, The World. It is an artificial archipelago, a series of islands modeled on the world itself. 250 to 300 islands are being built by pumping huge amounts of sand to the seabed. All major land bodies on the planet are represented, including Greenland and Antarctica. The whole development is surrounded by an oval breakwater and measures an area 6 km (3.7 mi.) long by 9 km (5.5 mi) wide. The average cost to purchase an island is $25 million.
Dubai has completed a huge indoor ski slope, one of the largest in a country where snow doesn’t fall. This is called Dubailand Snowdome. The Snowdome is part of the even larger Dubailand, which is under construction at a cost of nearly $900 million and will be the largest theme park in the world when completed.
Dubai is also building a rotating skyscraper, the first of its kind. The list of construction projects in Dubai goes on and on. It is a wonder that a city with just over one million inhabitants in 2007 can sustain this frenetic pace of development.
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