The UAE now has no fewer than 15 race tracks across the seven emirates. Nad Al Sheba Racecourse, 10 kilometers outside of Dubai, Al Wathba, 30 kilometers south-east of Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain track, which is 20 kilometers west of Al Ain, are all large, well-equipped camel tracks with high-tech facilities. Two smaller tracks are located in Sharjah, one in Ra’s al-Khaimah and one in Umm al-Qaiwain. Others are spread throughout the desert areas.

The United Arab Emirates national cricket team qualified for the 1996 Cricket World Cup and narrowly missed out on qualification for the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

The pace of growth of Dubai in recent years has been great. The investments in infrastructure have paid off: The economy is thriving. Nevertheless, the Dubai stock exchange has lost 2006 (the UAE index fell in 2006 to over 40%). The city has become the hub for international trade developed. From here, the markets in the Middle East, the CIS countries, Africa and the Indian subcontinent served – a market with nearly two billion people. Unlike in Abu Dhabi will be Dubai’s oil wells run dry in ten years. Thanks to the farsighted projects the city is supposedly well-hedged: Since the’80s, the share of oil and gas in the gross national product from 54 to 7%.

The gross national product (GNI) per capita of $ 24,000 is significantly smaller than that of Germany ($ 35,000), Austria ($ 37,000) or Switzerland ($ 55,000 Source: World Bank). This is also on the road to the cars: It does not go all the Rolls Royce or Mercedes …

85% of Dubai’s population are foreigners, mostly Asians (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese), but also Europeans. The wages are increased sharply in 2006, but because the prices are more sharply, losing attractiveness for Dubai European immigrant because of declining purchasing power. One of the main problems are the strong rising rents (2005 around 20% and 2006 approximately 10%), the difficulty of finding housing and the ever larger and more frequent traffic jams. Despite intense housing and Hotel Design is the offer apparently still too scarce, so the hotel prices in the last 24 months have doubled.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the union’s president from the nation’s founding until his death on 2 November 2004. The Federal Supreme Council elected his son, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president the next day. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the heir apparent.

• Abu Dhabi
• Ajman: 1 exclave
• Dubai: 1 exclave
• Fujairah: 2 exclaves
• Ras al-Khaimah: 1 exclave
• Sharjah: 3 exclaves
• Umm al-Quwain

There are two areas under joint control. One is jointly controlled by Oman and Ajman, the other by Fujairah and Sharjah.

There is an Omani enclave surrounded by UAE territory, known as Wadi Madha. It is located halfway between the Musandam peninsula and the rest of Oman, on the Dubai-Hatta road in the Emirate of Sharjah. It covers approximately 75 square kilometres (29 sq mi) and the boundary was settled in 1589. The north-east corner of Madha is closest to the Khor Fakkan-Fujairah road, barely 10 metres (33 ft) away. Within the enclave is a UAE exclave called Nahwa, also belonging to the Emirate of Sharjah. It is about 8 kilometres (5 mi) on a dirt track west of the town of New Madha. It consists of about forty houses with its own clinic and telephone exchange.

The UAE, rich in oil and natural gas, has become highly prosperous after gaining foreign direct investment funding in the 1970s. The country has a relatively high Human Development Index for the Asian continent and ranked 39th globally.

Before 1971, the UAE were known as the Trucial States or Trucial Oman, in reference to a nineteenth-century truce between Britain and several Arab Sheikhs. The name Pirate Coast has also been used in reference to the area’s emirates in the 18th to early 20th century