🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

Stone tools recovered in the region reveal settlement by people from Africa around 127,000 years ago, with a butchering tool on the Arabian coast suggesting habitation from 130,000 years ago. These finds establish the territory as one of the earliest sites of human presence outside Africa.

Six distinctive periods of pre-Islamic settlement are recognised, including the Hafit period (3,200–2,600 BCE), the Umm Al Nar culture (2,600–2,000 BCE) and the Wadi Suq culture (2,000–1,300 BCE). These sequences form the archaeological foundation of Emirati prehistory.

Trading links with Mesopotamia, Iran and the Harappan culture developed, motivated largely by copper from the Hajar Mountains from around 3,000 BCE. Sumerian sources refer to the Magan civilisation, identified as covering the modern UAE and Oman, marking the area's earliest role in long-distance commerce.

From 1,200 BCE until the advent of Islam, the area passed through three Iron Ages and the Mleiha period, occupied at times by the Achaemenids and other forces. The falaj irrigation system enabled extensive husbandry and fortified settlement in an arid environment, a decisive early technological capability.

An extensive monastic complex, thought to be Nestorian and built around 600 CE, was discovered in the 1990s on Sir Bani Yas Island and appears to have been abandoned peacefully in 750 CE. It is a rare physical link to a Christian legacy that spread across the peninsula along trade routes from 50 to 350 CE.

The spread of Islam to the north-eastern Arabian Peninsula followed a letter sent by Muhammad to the rulers of Oman in 630 CE. A group of rulers travelled to Medina, converted, and led a successful uprising against the Sassanids who then dominated the coast.

After Muhammad's death, insurrections threatened the new Islamic communities south of the Persian Gulf. An army sent from Medina completed the reconquest at the Battle of Dibba, with a reported 10,000 lives lost, assuring the integrity of the Caliphate and unification of the peninsula under the Rashidun Caliphate.

In 637 Julfar, within present-day Ras Al Khaimah, was an important port used to launch the Islamic invasion of Sasanian territory. The Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis, then known as Tu'am, was a key trading post on camel routes between the coast and the Arabian interior.

Arriving around 1500, the Portuguese set up bases and fought the Persians, building forts in the wake of bloody 16th-century conquests of coastal communities by Albuquerque and his successors, notably at Muscat, Sohar and Khor Fakkan. Portuguese influence over coastal settlements marked the first European domination of the region's maritime commerce.

British sources described the southern Persian Gulf coast as the 'Pirate Coast' because Al Qawasim boats attacked British-flagged shipping from the 17th into the 19th century. The charge is disputed by modern Emirati historians, including Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi in his 1986 book The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf.

Through a series of 19th century treaties, beginning with the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf coast ceded control of defence and foreign relations to Britain, becoming known as the Trucial States.

To protect Indian trade routes, British expeditions campaigned against Ras Al Khaimah and other harbours, with the 1819 campaign proving decisive. The defeat of the coastal powers opened the way for treaty relations that would define the region's political status for 150 years.

The year after the 1819 campaign, Britain and a number of local rulers signed a maritime truce, giving rise to the term Trucial States that came to define the coastal emirates' status. Further treaties followed in 1843 and the Perpetual Maritime Truce of 1853.

In 1869 the Qubaisat settled at Khor Al Adaid and tried to enlist Ottoman backing, in an area then claimed by Abu Dhabi with British support. The episode shaped later boundary claims on the Gulf's southern coast.

Under the 1892 treaty the sheikhs agreed not to dispose of territory except to Britain and not to deal with other foreign governments without British consent; Britain promised protection from aggression by sea and assistance on land. British maritime policing let pearling fleets operate securely, though the British prohibition of the slave trade cost some sheikhs and merchants an important income.

The British Political Resident Percy Cox wrote to Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan ('Zayed the Great') confirming Abu Dhabi's sovereignty over Khor Al Adaid. The ruling entrenched British arbitration of territorial claims in the Trucial States.

The First World War hurt the pearling trade, and the depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s combined with the invention of the cultured pearl destroyed it; the remnants faded after the Second World War when independent India taxed imported pearls heavily. The decline caused extreme economic hardship across the Trucial States.

In 1922 Britain obtained pledges from Trucial rulers not to sign concessions with foreign companies without consent. This reserved the region's prospective oil wealth for British-led interests, chiefly the Iraq Petroleum Company and Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

From 1935 onshore concessions were granted, with APOC signing the first on behalf of Petroleum Concessions Ltd, an IPC associate. Option payments provided useful revenue to communities impoverished by the collapse of pearling, though commercial oil remained elusive for years.

IPC's operating company drilled a 13,000-foot bore hole at Ras Sadr in 1950, taking a year and costing £1 million, and it came up dry. The effort marked the start of sustained onshore exploration in Abu Dhabi.

In 1952 the rulers established the Trucial States Council to coordinate matters between them, taking over the British development office and appointing Adi Al Bitar as secretary general and legal adviser. It was the first joint institution of the emirates and was dissolved only when the UAE was formed.

In 1953 a BP subsidiary obtained an offshore concession from Abu Dhabi's ruler; BP then joined Compagnie Française des Pétroles to form Abu Dhabi Marine Areas Ltd and Dubai Marine Areas Ltd. Undersea surveys followed, including one led by Jacques Cousteau.

In 1955 Britain acted for Abu Dhabi and Oman against Saudi claims to the Buraimi Oasis, a dispute that hindered onshore oil exploration. A 1974 Abu Dhabi–Saudi agreement appeared to settle the border but was never ratified; the border with Oman was ratified in 2008.

A floating platform rig towed from Hamburg was positioned over the Umm Shaif pearl bed in Abu Dhabi waters and struck oil in the Upper Thamama formation in March 1958. This first commercial discovery led to the first oil exports in 1962 and further finds at Zakum, Fateh off Dubai and Mubarak off Sharjah.

After five more dry bore holes, PDTC struck oil in commercial quantities at Murban No. 3 near Tarif on 27 October 1960; the company became the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company in 1962. Rising revenues funded Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's massive construction programme of schools, housing, hospitals and roads.

On 24 January 1968 the British prime minister announced the decision to end treaty relations with the seven trucial sheikhdoms, reaffirmed by Edward Heath in March 1971. Sheikh Zayed offered to pay the full cost of keeping British forces in the Emirates, but the offer was rejected, forcing the sheikhdoms towards union.

Dubai's oil exports commenced in 1969, allowing Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum to invest the revenues from limited reserves. That investment sparked the diversification that created the modern global city of Dubai.

For more than three decades oil revenues and global finance powered the economy, lifting per capita GDP to a level on par with leading West European nations. High oil revenues and a moderate foreign policy stance allowed the UAE to play a vital role in regional affairs.

Intensive hunting had brought indigenous fauna close to extinction, prompting Zayed to launch a conservation programme on Sir Bani Yas Island in the 1970s. It secured the survival of species including the Arabian oryx, Arabian camel and leopards.

From independence in 1971 the economy expanded almost 231 times to 1.45 trillion dirhams by 2013, while non-oil trade grew around 28 times between 1981 and 2012. By 2018 oil and gas contributed 26% of GDP, making the UAE the most diversified economy in the MENA region.

On 29 and 30 November 1971, days before British protection treaties expired, Iranian forces occupied the three islands: a destroyer group took the Tunb islands by force while two British warships stood idle, killing four Ras al-Khaimah policemen on Greater Tunb, while a separate group approached Abu Musa, which Sheikh Khalid bin Muhammad Al Qasimi had already agreed to lease to Iran for $3 million a year. The seizures created a territorial dispute the UAE has contested ever since, shaping its threat perception of Iran, including its financial support for Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War.

When the British–Trucial Sheikhdoms treaty expired on 1 December 1971 the emirates became fully independent, and on 2 December Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah signed a founding treaty entering into union as the United Arab Emirates. Ras Al Khaimah joined the federation on 10 February 1972, completing the seven-member union; Bahrain and Qatar, originally intended for the proposed Federation of Arab Emirates, became independent separately.

The new federation joined the Arab League on 6 December 1971 and the United Nations on 9 December. Rapid admission to both bodies secured international recognition of the union within days of its formation.

Ra's al Khaymah acceded to the federation in February 1972, becoming the seventh and final emirate of the UAE.

In February 1972 the rulers established the Federal National Council, a 40-member consultative body appointed by them. It became the federation's principal representative institution, though without elected membership until 2006.

Saudi Arabia had laid claim to swathes of Abu Dhabi around independence; a 1974 agreement formally demarcated the frontiers between the two states. The agreement was never ratified, leaving the border legally unsettled.

Total population rose from around 550,000 in 1975 to close to 10 million by 2018, and to over 11 million by 2024. The expansion, driven overwhelmingly by expatriate labour, underpinned the construction and services economy.

Diversification efforts were initiated even before the oil price collapse of the 1980s, and from that decade the UAE spent billions on infrastructure. The result is the most diversified economy in the Middle East and North Africa and among GCC members.

The UAE helped found the GCC in May 1981, with Abu Dhabi hosting the first summit. Membership anchored the federation in a regional bloc for security and economic coordination.

UAE aircraft and territory, including Al Dhafra air base, supported coalition operations during the 1991 Gulf War. The conflict followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait the previous August and ended with Iraqi forces driven from Kuwaiti territory.

An Emirati infantry battalion joined the United Nations UNOSOM II force in Somalia in 1993, among the first of many overseas deployments. Later missions included Kosovo, Kuwait during the Iraq War, demining in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

The UAE concluded a military defence agreement with the United States in 1994 and with France in 1995. These pacts formalised the security guarantees that replaced British protection after 1971.

Sharjah, whose Heritage District contains 17 museums, was designated Cultural Capital of the Arab World in 1998. The award reflected the emirate's distinct cultural rather than commercial strategy within the federation.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE's founding president since 1971, died on 2 November 2004 after 33 years in office. The Supreme Council of Rulers elected his son Khalifa bin Zayed to succeed him the same week, continuing Abu Dhabi's hold on the presidency, while Mohammed bin Zayed became crown prince of Abu Dhabi, setting the line of succession that would later produce the third president.

Snow was recorded in the UAE for the first time on 28 December 2004 in the Jebel Jais mountain cluster in Ras al-Khaimah. The event was a notable meteorological first in a country where coastal temperatures exceed 45 °C in summer.

On the death of Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum in January 2006, Mohammed bin Rashid took both the federal premiership and the rulership of Dubai. The concentration of both roles underpinned Dubai's rapid development drive.

On 16 December 2006 a restricted electorate chose half the members of the Federal National Council, the country's first national vote. It was a limited but genuine step towards representative participation in a federation of hereditary rulers.

The centre at UAE University, funded by the UAE Space Agency, launched the mission on 7 July 2026 to develop low Earth orbit navigation technology. Officials said the satellite had met its technical objectives during initial operations.

It urged maximum restraint after Washington and Tehran resumed strikes when a June ceasefire collapsed, and condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure such as desalination plants and hospitals. It said dialogue remained the only path to reducing tensions.

The satellites, activated on 9 June 2026, provide high-resolution, all-weather imagery to speed up disaster response and climate monitoring. Officials said the radar data would support emergency management, building on lessons from the 2024 Dubai floods.

The authority, announced on 15 June 2026, brings the UAE's public data, artificial intelligence and digital government functions under one federal body reporting to the cabinet. Minister of State Omar Sultan Al Olama was named its chairman.

On 2 May 2026 the UAE and Qatar concluded a new free trade zone agreement with South Korea. The deal extended the Emirati strategy of diversifying trade partnerships beyond hydrocarbons.

The exit took effect on 1 May 2026 as Abu Dhabi sought freedom to set its own oil output following supply shocks from the Iran war. The energy ministry said the decision reflected the UAE's actual production capacity and national interest.

The memoranda of understanding covered renewable energy, food processing and healthcare investment as part of a wider push to deepen the strategic partnership between the two countries. Non-oil trade between India and the UAE has continued to grow.

On 28 April 2026 the UAE announced it would leave OPEC effective 1 May 2026, partly to permit increased oil output. Exit ended decades of significant Emirati participation in the cartel's production management.

The attacks hit gas facilities at the Habshan complex, central to ADNOC's operations, as the wider conflict cut regional oil and gas supply and closed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE later cited the disruption when it left OPEC in May.

After coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran began on 28 February 2026, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps hit US military assets and critical Emirati economic infrastructure in retaliation. Israel sent its Iron Dome system and crews to the UAE, the first foreign deployment of the technology, and the Wall Street Journal reported Emirati strikes on Iran including Lavan Island in early April.

The change, which took effect at the start of 2026, allows Emiratis to manage their own financial and legal affairs three years earlier than before. It was among several new federal laws introduced at the same time.

Delegations met in Abu Dhabi on 23 and 24 January 2026 to discuss territorial questions and security guarantees, with US officials describing the mood as constructive. No ceasefire or comprehensive settlement was reached during the talks.

The move followed an ultimatum from Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council for the UAE to end its support for southern separatists. The withdrawal ended years of direct UAE military involvement in the country's civil war.

On 6 March 2025 Sudan accused the UAE at the ICJ of complicity in genocide through its support for the Rapid Support Forces, alleged to have committed atrocities against the Masalit in Darfur. Reports in 2025 exposed Emirati arms supplies to the RSF in violation of international sanctions, and the fall of El Fasher late that year intensified global scrutiny.

A trial of 84 defendants beginning in December 2023 ended with 43 life sentences and ten sentences of up to fifteen years for peaceful protest against the government. Human Rights Watch cited the case in January 2025 as evidence of the Penal Code and Cybercrime Law being used to silence critics.

In September 2023 the UAE created the GCGRA, signalling plans to legalise gambling despite Sharia restrictions. The first commercial gaming licence went to Wynn Resorts for a casino resort at Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah, due to open in March 2027.

Announced in 2019 by Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, the interfaith complex on Saadiyat Island houses a synagogue, mosque and church; the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue was completed in 2023. It followed the country's normalisation with Israel and its promotion of religious tolerance, alongside over 52 churches by 2023.

Dubai hosted COP28, the UN climate summit, from 30 November to 13 December 2023, drawing over 80,000 delegates. The summit closed with the first global agreement calling on nations to transition away from fossil fuels.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan died on 13 May 2022 after a long illness, and the council of rulers elected his half-brother Mohamed bin Zayed, already de facto leader, as the UAE's third president the same day.

On 9 February 2021 the Emirati probe Hope successfully entered Mars orbit, making the UAE the first Arab country and the fifth nation to reach the planet, and the second to orbit it on a maiden attempt. The mission established the country as a spacefaring state.

In November 2020 the UAE decriminalised alcohol, lifted the ban on unmarried couples living together and ended lenient treatment of honour killing; corporal punishment ceased to be legal from September 2020 and the Penal Code was amended to limit Islamic law to retribution and blood money. The reforms, made ahead of the 2020 World Expo, aligned law more closely with international visitors' expectations.

The pandemic reached the UAE on 29 January 2020, and by March the government closed malls, schools and places of worship, imposed a 24-hour curfew and suspended all Emirates passenger flights. The resulting economic downturn led to the merger of more than half of the UAE's federal agencies.

Reuters reported that at least 200,000 workers, mostly Indian but also Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino and Nepali, were repatriated as pandemic conditions deteriorated; more than 150,000 Indians in the UAE had registered for repatriation by 2 May 2020. The episode exposed the vulnerability of the expatriate workforce on which the economy depends.

The Dubai Clean Energy Strategy set a 7% clean energy share by 2020, rising to 25% by 2030 and 75% by 2050. Nationally the UAE targets a 31% cut in greenhouse gas emissions against business-as-usual by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

The UAE became the first Gulf state to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel, signing the agreement at the White House on 15 September 2020. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan followed with their own normalisation deals.

In December 2019 the UAE became the only Arab country, and one of five worldwide, to reach 50 per cent female membership in a national legislative chamber. The change was central to the state's international image-building.

5G wireless services were rolled out across the country in 2019 through a partnership with Huawei. Early deployment supported the state's ambitions in digital infrastructure and smart-city services.

Al Mansouri launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on 25 September 2019 and spent eight days aboard the International Space Station. His flight was organised by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.

VAT at a standard rate of 5% took effect on 1 January 2018, contributing roughly 6% of total government revenue, or 27 billion dirhams, in its first year. It gave fiscal policy greater independence from oil and gas revenue, which supplied about 36% of the total.

In June 2017 the UAE joined several Middle Eastern and African states in severing relations with Qatar over allegations of state sponsorship of terrorism. Ties were restored in January 2021, ending nearly four years of Gulf rupture.

A Soft Power Council was created in 2017 to address the country's international reputation. Associated activity included hosting COP28, Formula One races and the 2018 World Tolerance Summit, alongside tourism and business promotion.

On 4 September 2015 a Houthi Tochka missile struck a weapons cache in Marib, central Yemen, killing 52 Emirati soldiers. It remains the greatest single loss in the history of the UAE military and a defining moment of its Yemen intervention.

The coalition launched Operation Decisive Storm in March 2015 to support the internationally recognised government against Houthi forces. UAE troops later took a leading role in southern Yemen before gradually scaling back their presence.

The 2014 Counter-Terrorism Law provides for travel bans, life imprisonment and the death penalty, and has been applied to peaceful critics of the government and organisation managers. Article 188 of the Penal Code, updated in 2022, similarly punishes forming associations aimed at challenging the regime.

In 2014 Dubai International overtook London Heathrow as the busiest airport in the world for international passengers. Its role is to be superseded by Al Maktoum Airport, whose expansion was announced on 28 April 2024 and will lead to the older airport's closure.

From 2014 adult Emirati males were required to serve 16 months in the armed forces to expand the reserve. The measure aimed to broaden a national manpower base in a country dependent on expatriate labour.

Mindful of protests in nearby Bahrain, the UAE criminalised online ridicule of its government and attempts to organise public protests through social media in November 2012. The measure marked a significant tightening of digital speech controls.

The UAE joined the international intervention in Libya in March 2011, contributing six F-16s and six Mirage 2000s to enforce the no-fly zone. The deployment marked its emergence as an expeditionary air power in Arab conflicts.

The UAE essentially avoided the Arab Spring unrest seen elsewhere in the Middle East, though in March 2011 political activists and intellectuals signed a widely circulated online petition calling for greater public participation. To stem potential unrest the government announced a multi-year 1.6-billion-dollar infrastructure investment plan for the poorer northern emirates and aggressively pursued advocates of political reform.

Although largely spared the Arab Spring, the UAE arrested 60 Emirati activists from Al Islah for an alleged coup plot and attempt to establish an Islamist state. The case set the pattern for subsequent mass trials of dissidents.

The state-owned conglomerate asked creditors to delay repayment on tens of billions of dollars of debt in November 2009, rattling global markets. Abu Dhabi provided a $10 billion bailout the following month to help stabilise Dubai's finances.

In February 2008 the ministry set out a five-year health strategy for the northern emirates, which lack the separate healthcare authorities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Abu Dhabi nationals were brought under a health insurance scheme in June 2008, with Dubai following for government employees.

In January 2008 the two states signed a deal allowing France to establish a permanent military base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. It deepened the UAE's diversification of external security guarantees beyond the United States.

The confluence of falling oil prices, collapsing real estate prices and the international banking crisis struck the UAE especially hard in 2008–09, with Dubai requiring support from Abu Dhabi.

Salik, Dubai's electronic road toll collection scheme, began operating in July 2007 as part of the emirate's traffic congestion management. Public transport's share of mobility in Dubai rose from 6% in 2006 to 20.61% in 2022.

Etisalat operated a monopoly until du launched mobile services in February 2007. Internet subscribers were expected to rise from 0.904 million in 2007 to 2.66 million by 2012, and 5G was installed nationwide in 2019 in partnership with Huawei.

In 2007 the Dubai ruler and federal prime minister decreed that journalists could no longer be prosecuted or imprisoned for reasons relating to their work. Published material nonetheless remained subject to strict censorship, with the harshest guidelines repealed only in 2021.