This chapter includes the following articles.
Al Ain
The city of Al Ain is sometimes known as “the Garden City”, and with good reason. While the UAE is largely composed of desert, Al Ain sits in the centre of a large oasis that it shares with the neighbouring Omani town of Buraimi and which has sustained human settlement for thousands of years. Now, diverse economic activity is offering new opportunities aerospace supplies production, food processing and tourism – all areas which the government hopes to develop in Al Ain. Furthermore, retail space, office space and hotel rooms are all set to increase under bold plans for the city’s expansion. Indeed, Al Ain had a population of only 338,000 in 2005, but this is expected to rise to 627,000 by 2020 as a result of growth, reaching 1m by 2030, as new jobs attract residents.
