48 Fun Facts About Dubai

What opened inside a Dubai shopping mall in 2005, the first of its kind in the Middle East?

An indoor ski resort, Ski Dubai keeps its five slopes close to freezing all year in a city where summer highs average 40 °C, and its penguins are let out to waddle through the snow several times a day.

Dubai sits on the coast of which body of water?

The Persian Gulf reaches into the city as Dubai Creek, a natural inlet that Sheikh Rashid had dredged with borrowed money so that bigger ships could dock.

Before it became a trading hub, Dubai was a small village living on which two trades?

Pearling and fishing kept Dubai alive until the pearl trade collapsed in the 1930s, plunging the town into a depression so deep that many residents left.

Which family has ruled Dubai since 1833?

Al Maktoum rule began when Maktoum bin Butti led about 800 tribesmen away from a feud at home and took over the little town without a fight.

In 1901 Dubai's ruler took what step that turned the town into a regional trading hub?

Declared it a tax-free port, and merchants from Lingeh on the Iranian coast moved their businesses across; by 1906 Dubai had replaced Lingeh as the chief trading port of the Trucial coast.

Dubai struck oil offshore in 1966, in far smaller amounts than which of its neighbours?

Abu Dhabi had been exporting oil since 1962, and Sheikh Rashid, knowing Dubai's own field was small, borrowed against it to build a deep-water port before the oil ran out.

Dubai, where oil is now a tiny share of the economy, founded which airline in 1985?

Emirates began with US$10 million from the government and two aircraft leased from Pakistan's national airline, and was told to expect no further subsidy.

Which emirate stayed out when the UAE formed in December 1971, then joined as its seventh member weeks later?

Ras Al Khaimah joined on 10 February 1972, ten weeks after the union began and soon after Iran seized the Tunb islands it claimed.

The ruler of which neighbouring state lent the money for the first bridge across Dubai Creek in 1963?

Qatar's ruler, Sheikh Ahmad, was married to Sheikh Rashid's daughter, and the loan was repaid by charging drivers a toll to cross the new bridge.

The two districts on either side of Dubai Creek are Bur Dubai and which other?

Deira filled up after a smallpox epidemic in Bur Dubai in 1841 drove residents across the creek to settle there.

What are the small traditional boats that ferry passengers across Dubai Creek called?

Abras are the city's oldest public transport: until a bridge opened in 1963, crossing the creek meant taking one or going all the way round, and they still leave every few minutes.

The Burj Khalifa was known by what name until its opening ceremony in January 2010?

Burj Dubai was renamed on opening night for Sheikh Khalifa, the UAE's president, weeks after his government gave Dubai US$10 billion to help pay its debts.

Which skyscraper did the Burj Khalifa replace as the world's tallest building?

Taipei 101 had held the title since 2004; the Dubai tower's final height was kept secret until opening night, when it proved to be more than 300 metres taller.

Which Chicago firm designed the Burj Khalifa, with Adrian Smith as chief architect?

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, designers of Chicago's Sears Tower, stepped the Dubai tower back in a rising spiral so that, in the firm's words, its changing shape would 'confuse the wind'.

Some of the structural steel in the Burj Khalifa was salvaged from which demolished building?

East Berlin's Palace of the Republic, once East Germany's parliament, was cut up for scrap in 2008; its steel girders went off by barge to be melted down and sold, some of it for the Dubai tower.

The Burj Khalifa's Y-shaped footprint, with three lobes around a core, is modelled on what?

A desert flower with open petals inspired the three-lobed base, its architects say, and the shape works hard: each wing braces the other two against the wind.

Which fashion house opened its first hotel inside the Burj Khalifa in 2010?

Armani opened its first hotel there in April 2010, with Giorgio Armani himself overseeing its interior design, from the guest rooms to the restaurants and spa.

The Burj Al Arab hotel's shape is designed to resemble what?

The sail of a dhow was architect Tom Wright's answer to a brief for an icon that would stand for Dubai as the Opera House does for Sydney and the Eiffel Tower for Paris.

Who coined the Burj Al Arab's famous but unofficial 'seven-star' rating?

A British journalist called it a seven-star hotel after a press trip before the 1999 opening; the owners say they have never used the label, and officially it is a five-star hotel.

In 2005 Roger Federer played a friendly tennis match on the Burj Al Arab's helipad against which American star?

Andre Agassi and Federer traded shots high above the city in a friendly match; a year earlier Tiger Woods had teed off from the same spot, and it has since served as a racing track and a boxing ring.

Dubai's old Chicago Beach, beside today's Burj Al Arab, got its name from what?

An American firm welding oil tanks, Chicago Bridge & Iron, built the giant 'Kazzans' on the sand, then floated them out and sank them onto the seabed at Dubai's offshore oil field.

Which resort, home to the Aquaventure water park, crowns the outer crescent of the Palm Jumeirah?

Atlantis opened on schedule in September 2008, three weeks after a fire swept its lobby, then threw a £15 million launch party at which Kylie Minogue was paid £2 million to sing.

Dredging firms from which country, long practised at winning land from the sea, built the Palm Jumeirah?

The Netherlands supplied the dredgers, which sprayed sand into place in arcs, a technique called rainbowing, while satellite positioning kept the palm's shape true.

The Middle East's first line of what kind has run up the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah since 2009?

A monorail carries visitors 5 km out along the trunk, but it still stops short of the Metro: riders have to change to a tram at the island's foot.

Dubai's Jebel Ali port, built in the 1970s, is described as having the world's largest what?

Human-made harbour: Jebel Ali was dug out of bare coast, and the free zone opened beside it in 1985 let foreign firms import labour and export capital freely, which drew thousands of companies.

In 2024 Dubai's main airport, DXB, ranked as the world's busiest for what?

International passengers numbered 92.3 million at DXB in 2024, some 13 million ahead of London Heathrow, though Atlanta stayed the world's busiest airport once domestic travellers are counted.

In 2011 Guinness certified a 52-km Dubai Metro line as the world's longest metro line of what kind?

Driverless trains have run the whole network from the start, and the start was staged: Dubai's ruler opened the metro at 9 minutes and 9 seconds past 9 pm on 9 September 2009.

Which two colours name the Dubai Metro's original lines?

Red and Green lines opened exactly two years apart, on 9 September 2009 and 2011, and the city sold naming rights to many stations, so a stop's name can change when its sponsor does.

Which Dubai Mall attraction cracked and leaked in 2010?

The aquarium, a shark-filled tank that had opened with the mall in November 2008, sprang a leak in February 2010, and six divers went in while part of the mall was cleared.

In the 1960s Dubai's traders grew rich shipping which cargo to buyers offshore of a country that restricted its import?

Gold flown in from London cost $35 an ounce and fetched nearly double across the water, so by 1966 only France and Switzerland were taking more of London's bullion than Dubai.

The 150-metre landmark opened in Dubai's Zabeel Park in 2018 is shaped like a giant what?

Picture frame it is: one side looks out on old Dubai and the other on the new skyline, but Fernando Donis, who won the design contest, says the city built it without his agreement.

Ain Dubai overtook Las Vegas's High Roller in 2021 as the world's tallest what?

Observation wheel: Ain Dubai stands 82 metres taller than the High Roller, but it closed only months after opening and stayed shut for more than two years, until December 2024.

Which global summit met in 2023 at Expo City, the former site of Dubai's Expo 2020?

COP28 climate conference delegates from nearly 200 countries agreed there, for the first time at a UN climate summit, on the need to move away from fossil fuels, in a state built on oil.

The windows of Dubai's ring-shaped Museum of the Future form what across its steel façade?

Arabic calligraphy wraps the whole building: the windows spell out three sayings of Dubai's ruler about the future, drawn by the artist Mattar bin Lahej.

In 2016 Dubai opened what it called the world's first working office building made how?

By 3D printing: a 20-foot-high printer with a robotic arm turned out the concrete sections in 17 days and they went up on site in two, which its architects say halved the labour cost.

Which sport's international governing body is headquartered in Dubai?

Cricket's world body, the ICC, had been based at Lord's in London since its founding in 1909, but packed up and moved its headquarters to Dubai in August 2005.

The Dubai World Cup, founded by Sheikh Mohammed, is a race for which animals?

Thoroughbred horses have run it since 1996, when America's champion Cigar flew in to win the first race; it moved to the new Meydan Racecourse in 2010.

Which football legend coached Dubai's Al Wasl club in the 2011–12 season?

Diego Maradona took the job in May 2011 amid high expectations, but Al Wasl finished eighth in the league and he was fired after a single season.

Before 2006, Dubai's weekend fell on which two days?

Thursday and Friday gave way in 2006 to Friday and Saturday, a compromise between the Muslim holy day and the Western weekend, and in 2022 Dubai moved again, to a half-day Friday with Saturday and Sunday off.

Which nationality forms the largest group of Dubai's expatriates?

Indian residents are by far the biggest community, while UAE citizens are outnumbered several times over by foreigners, a small minority in their own city.

Which mountain range runs along Dubai's border with Oman at the exclave of Hatta?

The Hajar mountains lift Hatta high enough to stay cooler than the coast, so the village, handed to Dubai's ruler by a sultan of Oman, has long served as a retreat from the city's heat.

Which practice did some wrongly blame for Dubai's April 2024 floods?

Cloud seeding planes had not flown during the storm, the UAE's weather centre said, and scientists added that a downpour of a year's worth of rain in a day was far too big for seeding to cause.

Which UAE holiday on 2 December, officially called Eid Al Etihad, marks the founding of the federation in 1971?

National Day falls on 2 December because six sheikhdoms united on that day in 1971, the morning after the old protection treaties that had bound them for 150 years ran out.

Which currency did Dubai adopt in 1973 along with the rest of the UAE?

The dirham replaced a riyal that Dubai had shared with a neighbouring state since 1966, itself adopted in a hurry when the rupee then used along the coast was suddenly devalued.

Dubai Opera opened in Downtown Dubai in 2016 with a performance by which singer?

Plácido Domingo sang on opening night, 31 August 2016, in a hall where hydraulic lifts can clear away the seats to turn the theatre into a flat-floored space for banquets and weddings.

Until 1971 Dubai was one of the Trucial States, under the protection of which power?

Britain signed truces with the coast's sheikhs from 1820, hence the name Trucial, and its decision to pull its forces out pushed six of the sheikhdoms to unite the day after the treaties ended.

Land reclamation off Dubai has added more than 300 kilometres of new what?

Coastline is what islands shaped like palm trees pile up: the three palms were planned to add 520 km of it in all, though two of them stalled in the 2008 crash.

Which rugby world championship did Dubai host in 2009?

Rugby World Cup Sevens included a women's tournament for the first time that year, won by Australia, while Wales, who had never before reached a quarter-final, took the men's title.