Perfect information for your next pub quiz…

Dubai is such an interesting and intriguing city full of diverse cultures, with countless things to try out for the first time, an impeccable number of restaurants and of course a long list of achievements to back it. From over 300 Guinness world records to the spectacular achievement of only being 52 years old – we are all so lucky to call this incredible place home. 

No dust sticks to us

If you’re thinking about taking an extended holiday – make sure your car is under cover or protected from the dust (a task that seems nearly impossible.) Because the Dubai Municipality announced in 2019, according to Gulf News that residents will be fined Dhs500 for leaving your car unwashed in a public area for extended amounts of time.

English Magazines

This year we here at What’s On Dubai have officially celebrated our 45th anniversary and we wear with pride that our homegrown boredom-busting magazine has been around since 1979. It also happens to be the very first English-printed magazine in the region.

Expats love it here

The local population of the UAE is considerably lower than that the expat population. According to the Dubai Statistics Centre in 2022 there were 11 times more expats in Dubai than there were Emirati locals.

Camels powered by robots

Camel Racing

Camel racing is one of those regional sports that seems to genuinely spark the collective expat imagination. As a sport it has been around in the Middle East since the seventh century, but the UAE outlawed the use of human jockeys for camel racing, back in 2002 which left a gap in the employment market, for the innovation of robot powered camel racing.

Far fewer cars on the road once upon a time

Back in 1968, when the world was much different than it is today, there were only 13 cars in total registered to drive in Dubai. Sometimes, we wish that to be true today when we drive down Sheikh Zayed Road.

Where did the all come from?

It might seem unfathomable that a city that has the tallest landscape in the world once was desolate. But the Dubai did build itself up from the sand and only 33 years ago (in 1991) there was only one skyscraper in the city and it was in fact the World Trade Centre.

VETO powers in the UAE

You may have heard of VETO powers in school, but to brush up your terminology, VETO is a constitutional right to reject a decision or proposal made by a lawmaking body. In the UAE, a majority of five of the Supreme Council members make resolutions on important matters, provided that the majority vote includes a vote from Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Burj Khalifa has 57 elevators

The world’s tallest building in the world, there has to be at least a few ways to make it from the ground floor up to the top. But who would have thought that the Burj Khalifa has 57 elevators functioning in the building, the tower also holds 10 of its own Guinness World Records. The elevators for the observation are double carriage elevators and travel at 10 meters per second.

Men out weigh the women

This is a mans world… According to the Dubai Statistics Centre, in 2023 there were twice as many men as there were women in the city – although we can still safely say girls run the world.

Rain is manmade – kind of

Every single time it rains here in the UAE, you can guarantee that somebody will pipe up and claim cloud seeding ‘did it’, like it’s a game of scientific Cluedo. The law of averages means that some of these people will be right some of the time, cloud seeding missions do happen quite regularly in the relatively precipitation-poor, sunshine-rich UAE.

Images: Supplied and unsplash