Tuesday 19 March 2024 (UAE)

The World islands Dubai

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The World Nakheel logo
The World Dubai artists impression overview
The World Sheikh Mohammed villa Greenland aerial
The World Coral Island project Canada artists impression

The World island group by Nakheel

The World is a luxury property development by Nakheel Properties, a man-made archipelego of islands off the coast of Dubai in the Jumeirah area, built to resemble a map of countries of the world, with each island or group of islands representing a country, region, or city in the world. It is not to scale. Each island is sold to an individual or company which will develop a resort or property of some sort.

Road link construction to The World (December 2013)
Boat tours of The World in Dubai (January 2012, updated February 2012)
Tours of The World Dubai (September 2011)
The World is sinking ... again (January 2011)

The Daily Mail in the UK seems to have taken up the theme of The World's sinking islands on an annual basis, with a new report headed "The end of The World ... " on 23 January 2011, claiming that the "Dubai island development sinks back into sea," which is obviously incorrect as anyone flying over Dubai can see - the islands are still there. Or at least most of them are.

The World is sinking ... or not (February 2010)

The World is sinking ... at least according to The Daily Mail in the UK on 02 February 2010, a newspaper that some might say falls into the "print first, worry about facts later" style of reporting, and well known for having a bash at Dubai on a regular basis. The report said The World is "starting to look rather ragged around the edges" and "the islands are rapidly merging together and also appear to be sinking", based on a NASA photo of The World taken from space, which doesn't really look any different from other photos of The World taken since the dredging was completed. The "ragged" edge might refer to the breakwater which is supposed to be there, and was designed like that. The "merging" islands are probably those that are part of a revised plan in which some islands were merged deliberately (Canada, and Australia/NZ for example). The comparison image shown in the Daily Mail report is an artists impression published before the development even started. It seems hard to believe that anyone would take such a comparison seriously, let alone a newspaper journalist, then again, if the objective is to mislead and misrepresent, it makes more sense. Or perhaps the Daily Mail was just trying to be funny, but it's not 01 April, and they seem to want to be taken seriously.

However, the story was given extra support by Nakheel, the developer of The World, when they issued a statement strongly denying the story - "Speculative reports suggesting that The World islands are sinking are wholly inaccurate". Well, what else would they say? The phrase "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" comes to mind. And of course, the lack of progress of any of The World developments, the poor information flow about the debt problems that Nakheel and Dubai World have, and the lack of objective reporting from Dubai media, mean negative stories from the international press about The World and Dubai are more popular and are often given more credit than they deserve.

The World archipelago information

The World is a group of about 300 man-made islands (originally - as of January 2009 reports, about 250 due to some islands being merged) in the shape of a map of the world about 4 km off the Jumeirah coast in Dubai, UAE, covering an area of about 55 sq km. The master developer is Nakheel Properties, a subsidiary of the Dubai Government owned Dubai World conglomerate. Climate variation between the poles and the equator is not expected to be significant.

Islands are sold by invitation only (which is why you won't find them in the classified ads section of your newspaper), individually or in groups to buyers who will then develop them for various purposes. Some islands are themed after the country they represent and where the owners come from for example "Ireland in the Sun" to be developed on the Ireland island by an Irish developer. Others will have little relationship to the countries they represent, for example Nakheel's own Coral Island development in the north of Canada.

Islands in The World fall into one of several categories:

At the end of 2007, the only completed property in The World was the Nakheel display villa on one of the islands of Greenland. It was completed at the end of 2004 or beginning of 2005. Nakheel said that phase I of The World was finished 10 January 2008 with the completion of the breakwater, with a length of 27 km, height of 4 m, and 34 million tons of rocks. Hamza Mustafa, the director of The World, laid the last pebble at 8 am that day.

As of 10 January 2008, Nakheel has AED 220 billion (US$ 60 bn) worth of projects under development, including the Dubai Promenade announced on 09 January 2008.

The World in numbers
Other information about The World
Developments on The World
Timeline and History of The World
Last update Wednesday 06-Aug-2014
Related pages
Related websites (new window)
Sponsored links

www.dubaifaqs.com/the-world-dubai.php (PDF and print version).

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