United Arab Emirates: History, Geography, and Culture

Posted on Feb 24, 2025 in Geography

Chapter 1: Introduction to the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is located in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, bordering Oman and Saudi Arabia. It shares sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.
The UAE is a federation of seven emirates, each governed by a hereditary emir, with a single national president.
Abu Dhabi is the capital and the center of political, industrial, and cultural activities.
Before independence in 1971, the UAE was known as the Trucial States, referring to a 19th-century truce between local sheikhs and the United Kingdom.
The UAE’s political system is based on its 1971 Constitution, comprising several governing bodies. It is a federation of seven monarchies, whose rulers retain absolute power within their emirates.
Islam is the official religion, and Arabic is the official language.

The UAE is situated in Southwest Asia, bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Gulf, between Oman and Saudi Arabia. It holds a strategic location along southern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz.
The UAE lies between 22°30′ and 26°10′ north latitude and between 51° and 56°25′ east longitude. It shares a 530-kilometer border with Saudi Arabia and a 450-kilometer border with Oman.
Abu Dhabi accounts for 87% of the UAE’s total area (67,340 square kilometers). Ajman encompasses only 259 square kilometers.
The UAE coast stretches for more than 650 kilometers along the southern shore of the Arabian Gulf.
South and west of Abu Dhabi, vast sand dunes merge into the Rub al-Khali (Empty Quarter) of Saudi Arabia. The desert area of Abu Dhabi includes two oases with sufficient underground water.

The UAE may have played a role in the migration of early humans out of Africa into Asia.
The camel was domesticated at the end of the second millennium BC.
New irrigation techniques (falaj irrigation) enabled extensive watering of agricultural areas.
By the first century AD, overland caravan traffic existed between Syria and cities in southern Iraq.

Seaborne travel to the port of Omana (possibly Umm al-Qaiwain) and from there to India was an alternative to the Red Sea route used by the Romans.
Pearls were exploited in the area for millennia, with the trade reaching new heights at this time.
Seafaring was a mainstay, and major fairs were held at Dibba, attracting merchants from as far as China.

The arrival of envoys from the Prophet Muhammad in 630 AD marked the conversion of the region to Islam. By 637 AD, Islamic armies used Julfar (Ra’s al-Khaimah) as a platform for the conquest of Iran.
Julfar became a wealthy port and pearling center from which wooden dhows sailed across the Indian Ocean.

The Portuguese arrival in the Gulf in the sixteenth century had consequences for the Arab residents of Julfar and east coast ports like Dibba, Bidiya, Khor Fakkan, and Kalba.
The Qawasim, a local power, gained strength.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Qawasim had a fleet of over 60 large vessels and nearly 20,000 sailors.
This provoked a British offensive to control the maritime trade routes between the Gulf and India.

Villages at Liwa were the focus of economic and social activity for the Bani Yas from before the sixteenth century.
By the early 1790s, Abu Dhabi had become an important pearling center, leading the sheikh of the Al Bu Falah (Al Nahyan family) to move there from Liwa.
Early in the nineteenth century, members of the Al Bu Falasah, a branch of the Bani Yas, settled by the creek in Dubai and established Maktoum rule in that emirate.