Dubai has been one of the most exciting and volatile economic stories of the 21st century.
It's global, glitzy, and growing like crazy.
One out of every 4 cranes on Earth is located in Dubai.
Dubai's real estate is growing so fast, that 24% of the the cranes on Earth are located in Dubai.
Source: Gulf News
Dubai's artificial Palm Islands imported enough sand to fill 2.5 Empire State Buildings.
The construction of Dubai's Palm Islands required 94 million cubic meters of sand.
The Empire State Building is 37 million cubic meters.
The Empire State Building is 37 million cubic meters.
Source: Palm Islands Impact
The Burj Al Arab uses enough gold inside to cover 46,265 Mona Lisa paintings.
The interior of the Burj Al Arab is decorated with approximately 1,790 square meters of 24-carat gold leaf. The surface area of the Mona Lisa is 0.3869 square meters.
Source: Burj Al Arab, Jemeirah
Dubai's police force spends more on each of their super cars than it costs to send a kid to college.
Dubai's police force uses super cars in order to impress tourists, and show how "classy" the city is. Including cars like the Ferrari FF ($500,000) and Lamborghini Aventador ($397,000). They even have one Aston Martin One-77 ($1.79 million).
In Dubai, $300 robots are replacing illegal child labor in camel racing.
Camel racing is an industry that is estimated to be worth "hundreds of millions of dollars", although there is no exact number. Because children are small enough to be camel jockeys, the sport led to a boom in child trafficking from "impoverish[ed] communities in South Asia and Africa" in the past.
Robots from $300 to $10,000 are now used in order to curtail the problem of child trafficking.
Source: The Daily Beast
The Burj Khalifa is so tall that some of its residents need to wait longer to break fast during Ramadan.
The Burj Khalifa is approximately half a mile tall and has 160 residential floors. Those who live on the 150th floor and higher live so high up that they see the sun longer than other inhabitants of Dubai. Consequently, they could not break their fasts at the same time.
Source: The Guardian
If the Burj Khalifa was in Freiburg, Germany, you would still see it from Strasbourg, France.
You can see the Burj Khalifa from 95 km away.
The distance between Freiburg, Germany and Strasbourg, France is 86.4 km.
Source: Jennifer Dombrowski's Travels
Forty percent of physical gold traded in 2013 occurred in Dubai. All together, it weighed more than 354 elephants.
In 2013, $70 billion of physical gold traded and it weighed 2,250 tonnes. That's equivalent to 2,250,000 kilograms.
A male African elephant weighs between 2,268 to 6,350 kg. (We used the upper margin of 6,350).
Source: Arabian Money
original article: BusinessInsider
