10 lesser known facts about Dubai

Think you know everything about the city? Think again…

We live in a unique city: around 20 years ago most of what we see today was just desert. But now Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building, the world’s biggest mall, the world’s most expensive this, and the world’s most ridiculous that…

These are all things we knew before though, so we set out to discover facts about Dubai that were hiding under the surface.

Here are 10 lesser known bits of Dubai info that you can cough up at that next dinner party (because everyone loves a bit of useless information).

1. Dubai was home to around 20 per cent of the world’s cranes during its construction boom. 

2. The Palm Jumeirah is large enough that it took 10.5 million dump trucks worth of sand to create it. 

3. The Burj Khalifa is so tall (828m), that those who live at the top have to wait 2 mins longer for the sun to set before they can break fast during Ramadan.

4. There were only 13 registered cars in Dubai in 1968, which is roughly 154,000 times less than there are today. 

5. The Burj Khalifa is so large, it can be seen from 95km away. Which means that if it was located just outside of Doha, Qatar, you’d still be able to see it from the south of Bahrain.

6. Robot jockeys are used in camel racing instead of human jockeys.

7. 1,790m2 of 24-carat gold leaf covers the inside of the Burj Al Arab: that’s around seven full-sized tennis court’s worth of the glistening mineral

8. The local population of Emiratis only makes up 15% of Dubai’s population.

9. Dubai Metro is the world’s longest fully automated metro network at 75km.

10. 39 per cent of the Burj Al Arab is uninhabitable, with 405ft of empty space at the top. Without this it wouldn’t be considered ‘supertall’, a title only given to buildings above 900ft.

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Photos: Getty Images