The Palm Islands are an artificial archipelago (islands) in
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), off the coast in the Persian Gulf. Major
commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed by Nakheel
Properties, a property developer in the UAE. The Belgian and Dutch dredging and
marine contractors Jan De Nul and Van Oord, some of the world's specialists in
land reclamation, were hired to complete construction. The islands are the Palm
Jumeirah, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira.
Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped
with a crescent. The settlements will have a large number of residential,
leisure and entertainment centers. The Palm Islands will add 520 kilometers of
beaches to the city of Dubai.
The first two islands will comprise approximately 100,000,000 cubic metres (3.5×109 cu ft) of
rock and sand. The Palm Deira will be composed of approximately one billion
cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in The UAE. Among
the three islands, there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive residential
beach-side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants,
shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas.
The creation of the Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001.
Shortly after, the Palm Jebel Ali was announced and reclamation work began. The
Palm Deira is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kilometres (17.90
sq mi) and was announced for development in October 2004. Before the impact of
the global credit crunch hit Dubai, construction was originally planned to take
10–15 years.
Two other artificial archipelagos, The World and The
Universe, are located between the Palm Islands.