Dubai: history and heritage

About Dubai: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Dubai Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Dubai grew from the Creek. A fishing and pearling settlement on its banks became, from the turn of the twentieth century, a free port that drew merchants from Persia and India. Oil, found in 1966, paid for a city that now rises from the desert in towers; but the wind towers of Al Fahidi, the souks of Deira and the abras crossing the Creek still show where it began.

At a glance

Population: more than four million, a milestone passed in 2025 (Dubai Statistics Center); the great majority of residents are expatriates, from some 200 nationalities.

Peoples: Emiratis, with large South Asian, Arab, Iranian, Filipino, African and Western communities.

A pearling town on the Creek that became a global city in two generations.

Shaped by: Bedouin and coastal Arab communities, the Bani Yas settlement of 1833, the pearl trade, treaties with Britain (from 1820), oil (1966), and the United Arab Emirates (founded 2 December 1971).

Languages: Arabic is official; English is widely used.

Ancient Dubai

People lived on this coast long before the city: archaeologists have found Bronze Age settlements at Saruq Al Hadid, in the desert, where metalworkers made bronze and iron tools some three thousand years ago, and the Jumeirah archaeological site preserves an Islamic-era caravan stop.

1833 and the Creek

In 1833 members of the Bani Yas tribe, led by the Al Maktoum family, settled at the mouth of the Creek, the natural harbour that divides Deira from Bur Dubai. Al Fahidi Fort, built in the late eighteenth century and later the Dubai Museum, is the oldest building in the city.

Pearls

For generations Dubai lived from the sea. Each summer pearling dhows sailed to the oyster banks of the Gulf, and divers worked for months; the pearls went to India and on to the world. The trade collapsed in the 1930s, when cultured pearls and the Great Depression cut demand.

The free port

From the early twentieth century low duties drew merchants from Persia, who built the wind-tower houses of Al Bastakiya, now the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, and from India, whose traders filled the souks of Deira. The coastal sheikhdoms had signed treaties with Britain from 1820, and were known as the Trucial States. The Creek was dredged in 1959–1961 to take larger ships.

Oil and the UAE

Oil was found offshore in 1966 and first exported in 1969. On 2 December 1971 Dubai joined Abu Dhabi and other emirates to form the United Arab Emirates. Oil revenues paid for Port Rashid, the Jebel Ali port and free zone, and Dubai International Airport, and the city deliberately built an economy beyond oil, in trade, aviation, finance and tourism.

The global city

The Burj Khalifa, opened in 2010, is the tallest building in the world; the Museum of the Future opened in 2022; and Expo 2020 was held here in 2021–2022. Yet the abra ride across the Creek still costs a few dirhams, as it has for decades.

Our advice: start in the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, take an abra across the Creek to the spice and gold souks of Deira, and end the day at the Burj Khalifa, so that you travel from 1833 to today in an afternoon.

Sources

Population: Dubai Statistics Center, population estimates (2025). History: Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood; Saruq Al Hadid Archaeology Museum); Dubai Municipality; Government of Dubai Media Office; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Dubai”.

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