Dubai’s airport is a busy and an important transit station. It was named after Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was the president of the confederation until his death in 2004. According to some opinions, it is the friendliest and most convenient airport in the world. Every regular service can be found at the airport, but the spa is its specialty, where waiting time can be spent pleasantly.
Card exchange office and ATMs are also available and we can also find familiar international rent a car offices. The airport receives international flights only, there's no domestic air transport. We can reach the city from the airport on a 4-lane highway, either by rent a car, cab, or bus. It's advisable to choose from the Tony colored state taxis because only these have taxi meters. In a few years, the most modern subway will run in Dubai connecting the airport with the city center.
The city is split in two by long river-like sea arm, the core Dubai. We can cross this with the help of two bridges and a tunnel, but it's more romantic to sail. Small boats take us from shore to shore for one dirham. The canal, called Dubai Creek provides a natural birth for sea trade. Dara is located on the northern shore of the 12-kilometer long water, while the Bur Dubai district is on the south shore.
Dubai Emirate is the second largest of the seven. It spreads across 3,900 square kilometers and it has 850,00 inhabitants. Its capital, bearing the same name, is the middle east center of business life and tourism. The city spanning 35 square kilometers has 700,000 inhabitants. Not too long ago, the barren seashore was unobtrusively transformed to desert sand dunes and the bizarres of the small town by oriental merchants.
Pearls, gold, and oriental carpets are sold here, but European people scarcely appeared. But oil changed everything, modern skyscrapers are just one example of a 21st century cosmopolitan metropolis, equipped with all the achievements of high tech, but the roots are strong in the Arabian world, which seem exotic to us, and traditions haven’t died out. Muslims are called for prayers from the towers, the huge mosques in the city, and we can shop not only in the American-type malls at the feet of skyscrapers, but also in ancient Arabian bizarres. Bed of winds herd their camels at the edge of the city and pearl divers submerge in the clear water of the sea.
According to the testimony of archeological findings, excavated in the oasis the area is already populated centuries before Christ. In the 7th to 8th centuries, small city states were founded on the seashore, the forerunners of the later Emirates. European first try to take over the territory in the 16th century. Portuguese built ports and fortresses, but they gave up their colonization attempt to constant Turkish attacks.
Two centuries later, English, French, and Dutch merchants try to draw Abu Dhabi and Dubai under their supervision to facilitate the trading with India. The ship tens were also alarmed, but withstood the oblique colonization efforts. Pirate attacks where everyday occurrences of the neighboring seas and the Muscat Sultan cooperate with the British-East India company in the fence of merchants ships. This ensured the British reign against the Dutch.
Abu Dhabi came under full English control in 1820, and Dubai in 1903. An Arabian tribe settled on Dubai’s seashore populated by Bedoiuns in 1833, under the leadership of Al Maktoum family.
The town has first been developed into a center of pearl divers and a fishing village, then it became a significant sea port in the area and the most important commercial center of the ship tones. Here was the transit port of commerce with India, Persia, and Bengal the bizarres of the Deira district welcome buyers with 350 shops at the beginning of the 20th century. The buyers were mostly passengers and sailors having arrived with caravans. The population of the town reached 20,000 by 1930.
The first oil fields was drilled at the beginning of the 1950s and this generated an economic turn, thanks to this, the silted core Dubai was dredged for a huge cost and in this way the city cannot only kept but also strengthen its position as sea port and trading town.
The pushes government declare determination of its protectorate in 1968. Three years after the last English soldier have left the area at the end of the year that United Arab Emirates wad founded with the participation of 6 shiptone joined by Ras Al-Khaimah a year later. According to the treaty he signed at that time, Dubai gets the Department of the Prime Minister, the financial minister and secretary of war and power. According to the constitution, the actual power is in the hand of the supreme council, consisting of the Emirate rulers. The ruler, is elected by the council for five years. Now the government is nominated by the ruler.
The first President was Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who had been continuously reelected until his death. His successor in 2004 was his son, Kalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Prime Minister’s office was filled by Rashid Bin Saeed between 1958 and 1990. and from 1990 it is filled by Mohammed Bin Rashid. They are the people who are responsible for Dubai’s becoming one of the most modern and richest cities in the world.
The Jebel Ali Port and commercial zones was built with dimensions which make it visible even from space. The export of oil and its derivatives and the import of industrial products take place here 24 hours a day. The duty-free commercial zone further increases the country’s income. An international airport on the road network pebbles had been finished. Moreover, schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions seems to literally spring out of the ground. A system of public administration, health and pension is exemplary.
Then great tourist investments began in the 1990s, hotels, shopping and entertainment, center, beaches, theme park , and sports field were established. The two highest hotels of the world and the highest skyscraper of the middle east can be found here. And development continues at a staggering rate.
Dubai currently receives three million tourists annually. But this number will not apply when the planned investments have been completed.
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