Palm Island - DUBAI

The Largest Artificial Island in World

Introduction

There are number of archipelagos in the world which are natural. Archipelago infact is a chain of islands. These natural archipelagos have their natural beauty which is unmatchable. On the other hand artificial archipelagos are rare. But the some which are are really beautiful. Same is the case with Palm Islands in Dubai. This is an archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These islands are located off the coast of U.A.E in Persian Gulf. This chain of islands infact consists of three islands named Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira. Each island will be settled in the form of a palm tree. These islands are full of all kind of facilities required for life. These three islands will have 100 luxury hotels, specially designed beach villas and residential apartments, shopping malls, water parks, restaurants, spas, marinas and health facilities. There will be residential, entertainment and recreation centers in large number. These islands are made of rock and sand and first two projected islands composed of 100 million cubic meters of rock and sand while the third one which is named Palm Diera will be composed of 1 billion cubic meters of sand and rock.  With the development of these islands, 520 km of beach area will be added to the city of Dubai.

CONSTRUCTION

The construction of these islands is no doubt a challenging task. Nakheel Properties is the developer of this project while the marine contractors are Jan De Nul and Van Oord who are the world renowned specialists in land reclamation. The sand which they used in the construction of these peninsulas was dredged from Persian Gulf and sprayed on the required area using dredging ships. These ships are guided with DGPS and the process is called rainbowing. The outer edge of every settlement is a waterbreaker which is made of rocks. Each rock is placed by a crane. The construction of Palm Jebel Ali only used 210,000,000 cubic meters of rock, sand and limestone. Why not have the detailed virtual visit of these beautiful artificial islands.

PALM JUMEIRAH

All the three islands are in the shape of a palm tree. Palm Jumeirah also consists of a tree trunk with 16 fronds and a 11 kilometer long crescent which has surrounded the tree. Total area of the island is 5×5 kilometers. This island has 4000 residences. When the phase one ended there were 1400 villas complete and 2500 shoreline apartments which were built on the east side of the trunk. The Nakheel Properties has declared that the first residents will bring by one of the world’s largest airships to Dubai.

PALM JEBEL ALI

The construction of this island was started in October 2002. this project is 50 percent larger than the Palm Jumeirah. This island includes six marinas, a water theme park, and sea village and homes. Along the inner edge of the waterbreak of the island there is an Arabic poem spelling out.

PALM DEIRA

The construction of this island was announced in 2004 but no time frame was given for thee completion of the project. This island will be 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah and 5 times larger than the Palm Jabel Ali. There are 41 fronds of this island and it is 14 km by 8.5 km island. It is projected that it will house one million people.

The portions which have been developed of all three islands are must see places. This is indeed an architectural wonder.