What Dubai looked like before it boomed
Dubai is a desert phenomenon. In the space of 50 years, it has grown from a small trading outpost into one of the planet’s most iconic cities.
Epic skyscrapers like the Burj Khalifa and wildly ambitious developments such as The Palm stand as testament to a city in thrall to the new, the fast-paced and the seemingly impossible.
With a long Bedouin history and an allure that pulls in newcomers from all over the globe, there is nowhere else quite like it.
Dubai joined with its neighboring emirates to form the UAE in December 1971. At the time, no one could have foreseen its development. However, the oil found beneath the region meant that unimaginable riches were set to turn what had for centuries been a quiet corner of the Arab world, with a population of just 86,000, into something altogether more modern, a science-fiction take on what a city could be, with almost three million residents.