United Arab Emirates

Discover United Arab Emirates

Fun Foods

Shawarma, Manakish, Machboos, Harees, Balaleet, Luqaimat, Dates

Fifty years ago, much of the United Arab Emirates was empty desert and small fishing villages. Today it has the tallest building on Earth and islands shaped like palm trees that you can see from space.

That building is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It stands 828 meters tall, taller than two Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each other. From the very top, cars below look like tiny ants.

The palm-shaped islands are even stranger. Workers dumped millions of tons of sand into the sea to build whole new islands in the shape of a giant palm tree, now covered with homes, hotels, and beaches.

So how did a desert country build all this so fast? The answer is oil.

For most of its history, the people here were pearl divers, fishers, and desert travelers who moved with their camels. The area was even nicknamed the "Pirate Coast" long ago, because of the raiders who once sailed its waters.

Then, in the late 1950s, workers struck oil beneath the sand, and selling it made the region incredibly rich almost overnight.

Back then, the land was split into seven small kingdoms, each ruled by its own sheikh. In 1971, as Britain pulled out, those kingdoms made a smart choice and joined together as one country.

A leader named Sheikh Zayed became the founding father of the new United Arab Emirates, and he's still loved today.

The UAE used its wealth to build modern cities at lightning speed. But it didn't build them alone. Millions of workers came from countries like India and the Philippines to do the construction, and today around nine out of ten people living in the UAE were born somewhere else.

Many worked long hours in extreme heat for low pay, which has raised concerns about how fairly they were treated.

One of the wildest places to visit is Ski Dubai, an indoor mountain inside a shopping mall, where you can play in real snow while it's blazing hot outside. There are even penguins.

For a taste of the older way of life, families ride camels over the desert dunes and watch the sun set from a Bedouin camp. In Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque gleams in white marble.

For food, grab a shawarma, thin-sliced meat wrapped in warm flatbread, or try machboos, a spiced rice dish with meat.

For dessert, dip into luqaimat, little fried dough balls drizzled with date syrup, since the UAE grows some of the best dates in the world.