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Top-level
 5/ In recent decades major UAE 🇦🇪 city Dubai has grown and grown, with lots of new construction, including massive artificial islands and peninsulas along the coast. One such project, named "The World", is in the shape of the world, making it the world's largest map 6 comments
7/ Even though it is deserted, ownership can still be disputed. The UAE 🇦🇪 and neighbouring Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 disagree on the exact course of their border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_Arab_Emirates_border#Border_dispute 8/ The UAE 🇦🇪 has other open disputes with nearby Iran 🇮🇷 regarding who owns various islands near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The islands are occupied by Iran, but claimed by the UAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musa 9/ A bigger, longer-running, and regional dispute is about the body of water the Strait of Hormuz leads to. Known historically as "the Persian Gulf", many Arab countries feel the name should be "the Arabian Gulf" or even just "the Gulf" 10/ Speaking of the Gulf, the UAE 🇦🇪 is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) together with 🇧🇭🇰🇼🇴🇲🇶🇦🇸🇦. The GCC is a regional grouping with the goal of closer economic ties like a customs union and common market (along the lines of the EU 🇪🇺 in Europe). At one point a shared currency, to be called the Khaleeji, was envisioned, but this has stalled since the financial crisis of 2008. 11/ That's it for our look at the #geoweirdness of the UAE 🇦🇪 We have many more threads about specific countries, border disputes, geocoding, etc on our blog. |
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6/ Further inland the UAE 🇦🇪 is mainly desert, the start of the "Empty Quarter" which covers southern Arabia, one of the least populated parts of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali
#geoweirdness