Geographic Information

Since I have been asked by several people over the past several months about the size and population of the UAE, I thought that I would put some quick info about it.
The University of Texas's Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection has a collection of maps from the CIA Atlas of the Middle East, one of which is a map of the UAE over the southeastern US:



The UAE has a land area of 27,188 square miles. North Carolina has a land area of 48,711 square miles. The UAE has an estimated 3.44 million residents. North Carolina has an estimated population of 8.40 million residents.

There are seven emirates in the UAE. The name of each emirate is also the name of its principal city. Abu Dhabi is the capital city and the largest and richest emirate. It has the the largest percentage of the UAE's oil and natural gas reserves. Dubai is the largest city and the second largest and richest emirate. It has some oil, but most of its wealth comes from trade and banking. The other five emirates are Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Qaiwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. This map, adapted from the CIA Atlas of the Middle East, shows the boundries of the various emirates



As you can see, Al Ain is the Abu Dhabi emirate. The reason that most emirates are not internally contiguous is that before oil was discovered, most residents were nomadic Bedu had summer and winter territories.