Why Is The 'Land Of Paradise' Empty?

By the end of the 20th century, Dubai prioritised ending its dependency on oil as it is a non-renewable resource and turned to the tourism sector to diversify its economy.

- Vipraja Rao

Goals And Ambitions

During this time the country had a cent per cent reliance on crude oil but now it's merely 3% of Dubai's GDP. But now Dubai needed more stuff to attract people and by far the beaches topped the tourist lists.

But Dubai only had a 70 km coast and in comparison to the number of tourists, it was astonishingly low.

Hence during the time of its industrial boom, Nakheel Real Estate owned by the government of Dubai came up with a series of ambitious plans, one of which was called the "Land of Paradise".

Nakheel planned the development of 3 palm-shaped islands near the coast of Dubai Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira.

When seen from space they would appear like a giant Palm on the sea and would contain luxurious living spaces, resorts and hotels. Along with these two other multibillion-dollar projects, The World and The Universe were planned.

The World would contain about 300 islands in the shape of different countries and would be named after them. The Universe would also contain similar islands in the shape of the sun, moon, planets of the solar system, Milky Way et cetera.