With only about 72 kilometers of natural coastline, Dubai decided to manufacture more. Construction on the Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001 with the Dutch dredging firm Van Oord, whose ships sprayed sand onto GPS coordinates in a process called rainbowing. The sand was compacted with vibrating probes and locked in with millions of tons of rock, with no steel or concrete piles. The trunk holds dense apartments, the fronds hold villas with private beaches, and an outer crescent breakwater hosts resorts such as Atlantis. Handovers began in 2006, and by October 2007 about 500 families had moved in.

Trouble followed fast. Developer Nakheel had announced 4,500 units but packed in more, and in 2009 the New York Times reported furious early buyers and NASA satellite data suggesting the island was sinking 5 millimeters a year, a claim Nakheel rejected because the instrument’s resolution was 50 millimeters. The breakwater trapped stagnant water until engineers cut gaps into it, and a 2022 study found warmer, cloudier water around the island. In 2026 an Iranian missile sparked a fire at the entrance of the Fairmont hotel. The island, home to more than 25,000 residents, also draws sanctioned oligarchs and wanted fugitives, including a Dutch trafficking suspect known as Chubby Joss.

• Vibro compaction, the artificial earthquakes used to lock loose sand grains together
• Jellyfish in the calm inner waters and dolphins returning during the 2020 lockdowns
• The 5.4 kilometer monorail, opened in April 2009 as the first in the Middle East
• A Russian Duma deputy’s $13 million penthouse and a Ukrainian oligarch’s apartments passed to his daughter
• Why financial privacy and complex extradition made the island a vault for questionable money