United Arab Emirates historical timeline

Origins

Bronze Age settlements at Hili and Umm al-Nar traded copper with Mesopotamia four and a half thousand years ago, and the falaj irrigation channels around Al Ain are among the oldest still in use anywhere. For most of recorded history the coast lived on pearling, fishing and the dhow trade with India and East Africa, and the interior on date palms and herding. The ruling families of the seven emirates were established well before the British arrived.

Turning points

Treaties with Britain from 1820 produced the Trucial States, a set of protected sheikhdoms. The pearling economy, which had employed most of the coastal population, was destroyed in the 1930s by the Japanese cultured pearl and the Depression together, and the years that followed were genuinely poor. Oil was found in Abu Dhabi in 1958. When Britain announced its withdrawal from east of Suez, the rulers negotiated a federation, and the United Arab Emirates was founded on 2 December 1971 — the only successful federation of Arab states. Abu Dhabi held the oil; Dubai, with much less of it, built a port, a free zone, an airline and an airport instead, and turned itself into the trading and aviation hub of the region. The country has since made a deliberate push into finance, tourism, logistics and, most recently, space and artificial intelligence.

Influential people

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who drove the federation and then spent forty years as its president; he is referred to simply as the Founding Father. Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai, who borrowed heavily to dredge the creek and build the port when there was no oil money to pay for it. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, who continued it. And Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, president since 2022.

Cultural evolution

Emiratis are a small minority in their own country; the great majority of residents are foreign workers, most from South Asia, and the conditions of that workforce draw regular international criticism. Falconry is UNESCO-listed and taken seriously enough that birds travel on passports. Camel racing now uses robot jockeys. And the state has invested heavily in cultural institutions — the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in 2017 under a thirty-year agreement with France — as part of a deliberate strategy of building soft power rather than waiting for it.

Present-day significance

Dubai International is among the busiest airports in the world for international passengers, and the two national airlines have reorganised long-haul travel around a Gulf stopover. The UAE hosted the COP28 climate conference in 2023, normalised relations with Israel in 2020, and sent an orbiter to Mars in 2021. Diversification away from hydrocarbons is further advanced here than anywhere else in the Gulf.