Qualla: Dubai

Dubai: Introduction

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Phil6007, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1966, oil was discovered in Dubai's offshore waters. The emirate was a small trading port then, its economy based on pearling and smuggling and the creek where dhows had docked for centuries. Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the ruler who had already begun modernizing infrastructure, now had revenue to accelerate the transformation. But he also recognized that oil would run out - Dubai's reserves were always smaller than neighboring Abu Dhabi's - and planned accordingly. The ports and airports and free zones he built would generate wealth after the wells dried up. His son Sheikh Mohammed continued the vision, but at a scale that would have seemed inconceivable to anyone in 1966: artificial islands, the world's tallest building, indoor ski slopes in the desert, a city of over three million where sixty years ago perhaps 40,000 lived. Dubai today produces almost no oil; it produces instead the idea of Dubai - a place where anything can be built if you have enough money and enough migrant labor and enough air conditioning to survive 45-degree summers.

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Image: Phil6007 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dubai: The Burj Khalifa

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jan Michael Pfeiffer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Burj Khalifa rises 828 meters above the desert - the tallest structure ever built, nearly twice the height of the Empire State Building, a needle of steel and glass that appears in every photograph of Dubai's skyline. Construction took six years, from 2004 to 2010, involving ...

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Image: Jan Michael Pfeiffer | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dubai: The Palm and The World

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gopikrishnan9691, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Palm Jumeirah is a artificial island in the shape of a palm tree, visible from space, created by dredging billions of cubic meters of sand from the sea floor. Construction began in 2001; the first residents moved in 2006. The palm's trunk and fronds hold villas and apartments...

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Image: Gopikrishnan9691 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dubai: The Creek and the Old City

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McKay Savage from London, UK, CC BY 2.0. Before the skyline, there was the Creek - a natural inlet where dhows have traded for centuries, where pearling boats departed and returned, where the city's commercial life began. The creek divides Deira on the northern bank from Bur Dubai on the southern, crossed by abras (wate...

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Image: McKay Savage from London, UK | CC BY 2.0

Dubai: The Mall of Everything

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Gronemann from Switzerland, CC BY 2.0. The Dubai Mall covers 502,000 square meters of retail space - not quite the world's largest by area but certainly the most visited, with over 100 million visitors annually. The mall contains an aquarium, an ice rink, a virtual reality park, a waterfall three stories high, 1,200 s...

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Image: Peter Gronemann from Switzerland | CC BY 2.0

Dubai: The Workers' City

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nihad Nitz, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dubai's population is roughly 85% expatriate - the highest percentage of any city in the world. The workers who built the towers and clean the hotels and drive the taxis come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nepal, Ethiopia. They live in labor camps on the city'...

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Image: Nihad Nitz | CC BY-SA 4.0