United Arab Emirates

Seven sheikhdoms that federated on the day their protector left, and stayed federated. The Trucial States were small pearling and trading emirates along the lower Gulf, bound to Britain from 1820 by treaties suppressing maritime raiding - which is where the outdated name Pirate Coast came from - and by exclusive agreements handing Britain their foreign relations. Pearling collapsed in the 1930s when Japanese cultured pearls arrived, leaving the coast desperately poor. Oil was found in Abu Dhabi in 1958. When Britain announced in 1968 that it would withdraw east of Suez, the rulers negotiated a federation; Bahrain and Qatar considered joining and went their own way, and six emirates founded the UAE on 2 December 1971, with Ras al-Khaimah joining in February 1972. Zayed bin Sultan of Abu Dhabi, whose emirate holds most of the oil, was the federation's architect and president until his death in 2004, and the arrangement has been unusually durable for a Middle Eastern union. Dubai, with far less oil, built ports, free zones, an airline and a property market instead, and its 2009 debt crisis was resolved by an Abu Dhabi bailout. Around nine in ten residents are foreign nationals, most on temporary contracts with no route to citizenship. Each emirate keeps substantial autonomy. Abu Dhabi is the capital and Dubai the largest city. The seven emirates are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Fujairah and Ras al-Khaimah. The Burj Khalifa, completed in 2010, remains the tallest building in the world. The country sent an orbiter to Mars in 2021.

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