10 surprising facts about Dubai

You can drive a Ferrari if you are the police

Dubai roads are well known for their supercars and police cars are no exception. Dubai police have a fleet of luxury cars, including Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys, to perfectly match Dubai’s ethos. Dubai police were also recently presented with a certificate by Guinness World Records for having the world’s fastest police car in service – a Bugatti Veyron, just one of its 14 supercars.

Better go there when you are young

Dubai’s populations is particularly young since only 15% of the population is aged above 45. It is clearly a fast city with an even faster lifestyle that favours those who are looking to seize the day and succeed in every aspect of life. Young professionals in Dubai are mostly men expats who are hard-working professionals.

It wasn’t always that rich

You might think that diamonds are forever, but in the case of Dubai, pearls have been its hidden strength. Originally a pearl diving hub, Dubai residents would dive in Dubai Creek for up to 14 hours every day to reach for underwater gems. However, this was only in the early 20th century. Years later, Dubai’s nature was blessed with the discovery of oil that ultimately fuelled infrastructure development and world-renowned hospitality services.

You can buy gold at the ATM

You can pretty much buy anything from a vending machine in Dubai. The ‘Gold to Go’ ATM in Dubai Mall is literally stacked with gold just in case a shopping “emergency” arises. Dubai is a city full of extremely wealthy people were laptops, tablets and cameras and occasionally gold can be bought from an ATM.

It’s literally covered in gold

The Burj Al Arab hotel has enough gold to cover the Mona Lisa painting 46,265 times. Dubai is rightfully known as the city of gold and Burj Al Arab confirms it. Besides being the most luxurious hotel in the world, Burj Al Arab is ornated with 1,790 square meters of 24-carat gold leaf enough to cover La Gioconda and create an all-new Emirate renaissance.

There’s enough sand to fill the Empire State building twice

Have you ever wondered how much sand you would need to fill the entire Empire State Building? The Palm Islands in Dubai have just enough sand to fill two and a half Empire State Buildings. The construction of Dubai’s Palm Islands required 94 million cubic meters of sand whereas the Empire State Building is 37 million cubic meters.

Dubai will build the world’s first climate-controlled city and it will be bigger than Monaco

Dubai has plans to build a completely climate controlled city which will be 4.45 km² in size with air-conditioned boardwalks connecting the various sections. The domed city will be bigger in size than Monaco that spans across only 2.02 km².

Addresses and zip codes only came into place in 2015

Finding where a building was in Dubai used to be a great adventure. The city grew so rapidly that a proper address system wasn’t readily available. In 2015, a brand new address system was introduced to help with navigation, postal services and moving around the city. Let’s just note that even before the address system, the Emirate succeeded by relying only on P.O. boxes and a lot of written directions.

You can see the Burj Khalifa from 95 km away

Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, is a Dubai staple that named the Emirate ‘the city of superlatives. Burj Khalifa is so massive that if it was located just outside Doha, people from the south of Bahrain could still see it.