Dubaï, which used to live thanks to oil and gas, knows that ressources won’t be here in 20 years. So Dubaï prepares itself to the future by changing its economy. In fact, this is already the case. Oil and gas represent only 5% of the Gross domestic product. Now, and since a few years, the city develops luxury tourism and trade. That’s why Dubai have the craziest projects int the world. I will introduce some of them.
Burj Khalif
a/Burj Dubai This is a skyscraper, but not just another skyscraper… This the tallest building ever built, with 828 m high ! This is just crazy. The structure of the building is very original and has a good design as you can see in the picture. Construction began in 2004 and it officially opened on 4 January 2010. As we all guess, the cost of this project is very impressive : 1,5 billions $ ! It is a part of large district called Downtown Burj Khalifa which will cost itself 20 billions. Crazy numbers… There are 160 floors habitables. The others levels are booked for business.
Palm Islands
The palms Islands are artificial achepilago. The principle is that each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree. Once again, the project is completely crazy… Only for building the first two islands, it has needed 100 millions cubic meters of sand and rock …! There will be 3 Palms :
- Palm Jumeirah
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tL9BNegRMF_2Zdue9gfuIoVq9r0G445oMOIALTekgOj-_psZwLXZIjqGzWPmY-fhqReGRTbzpfdpmdbT92Mff9-4vYJxONXR0lku_7ao5uasd6saoA95ABUFL6PZkLq6pQn1YqpoV3FKZ5AV65gC4hauGjQCn_9CNGCJo-vnoJCbKGYMON_rqweJjVK-H1GMAflwkfyubMprVuU9zGAz89fKOShwFsGA=s0-d)
- Palm Jebel Ali
- Palm Deira
On this islands, you will find luxury hotels, exclusive residential villas and appartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants… The first two Palm are built, but since the crisis of 2008/2009, we don’t know when Palm Deira will be finished. This palm is bigger than the other…
Burj Al Arab
This a famous luxury hotel easily recognizable by its shape : it looks like the sail of a ship. It is the fourth tallest hotel in the world. It stands on an articificial island (again :-) ) . This project was very important for Dubai. The aim was to build something that will illustrated Dubai, in the same way that we associate the Eiffel Tower to France. The construction begans in 1994, so it's kinda old compare to previous projects I‘ve introduced. It includes suite rooms, restaurants, a big atrium and other features.
The world
It is another amazing project, but since the global financial crisis, it seems to be stopped. The story begans in 2003. The project was supposed to build small islands which, together, look like the world map ! In 2008, 60% of the island were already sold, even the project wasn’t finished. Unfortunatly, we don’t really know what will happen to the project… You have the picture above near the palm.