Dubai
The Gulf's glittering city of superlatives
Dubai has willed itself, in barely two generations, from a modest pearling and trading port into one of the most recognizable cities on Earth, a place of record-breaking towers, artificial islands, and relentless ambition. With a population of around three and a half million in the emirate, the overwhelming majority of them foreign workers and residents, it is a global hub for aviation, tourism, trade, and finance, the commercial showpiece of the United Arab Emirates.
The city sits on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, on a flat, sandy coastal strip backed by desert and the distant Hajar Mountains, sliced by the natural saltwater inlet of Dubai Creek that first made it a port. The climate is intensely hot and arid, with scorching, humid summers, and much of the modern city has been built on reclaimed land, including the palm-shaped islands that extend its coastline into the Gulf. Beyond the towers, dunes begin almost immediately.
Members of the Bani Yas tribe settled by Dubai Creek in 1833, founding the Maktoum dynasty that still rules the emirate. The town grew on pearling, fishing, and re-export trade before oil was found in the 1960s, but Dubai's leaders, knowing its reserves were modest, deliberately diversified into trade, real estate, and tourism. The result is a city of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, vast malls and ports, and a free-wheeling economy that has made it the crossroads of the modern Gulf.