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Dubai

 

Contents

Flag

Historical Flags

Meaning/Origin of the Flag

Coat of Arms

Map

Numbers and Facts

History

Origin of the Country's Name



Flag

Flagge Fahne Flag National flag national flag ensign State flag state flag Dubai Dubei Dubayy
National and state flag,
ratio = 1:2,
Source, by: Flags of the World, Wikipedia (EN)



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Historical Flags

Flagge Fahne Flag Seeflagge sea flag Abu Dhabi Dubai Fujairah Fudschaira Umm Al Quwain Umm al-Qaiwain Ajman Adschman Ghafiri Hinawi
to 1820, Ghafiri & Hinawi, in:,
Abu Dhabi, Umm Al Quwain, Ajman
Source, by: Flags of the World




Flagge Fahne Flag Seeflagge sea flag Merchant flag merchant flag ensign Vertragsstaaten maritime peace treaty Adschman Adshman Ujman Adjman Ajman
1820–1936,
Flag of the maritime peace treaty,
ratio = 1:2 & 1:3...,
Source, by: Flags of the World




Flagge Fahne Flag War flag war flag Dubai Dubei Dubayy
1820–1892,
War flag,
ratio = 1:2 & 1:3...,
Source, by: Wikipedia (EN)



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Meaning/Origin of the Flag

The flag history of the country begins with the piracy of Arab tribes, who were able to develop into very successful pirates in the region due to the confrontation between the major naval powers in the Napoleonic Wars and the recovery in world trade after Napoleon's defeat. The most important representatives of piracy were the tribal organisations of the Hinawi (Sheikdom of Abu Dhabi, later also Dubai and Fujairah) and of the Ghafiri (in the sheikhdoms of Umm Al Quwain and Ajman) and the powerful Al-Qawasim dynasty, which ruled in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah and later in Sharjah too. The Hinawi and Ghafiri used single-coloured red flags without defined side lengths. The Al-Qawasim, as a powerful naval power, already had a more modern flag. It was horizontally striped green-white-red with an Arabic inscription in the centre "Nassr min Allah wa fatah karib" → "By Allah to victory and total subjugation". United Kingdom, as the major naval power, decided to take military action against piracy and defeated the Arab tribes of the region, who were forced to sign a maritime peace treaty in 1820 to end piracy. The Arabs were bound to peace, but their ships were given freedom of movement in trade and were allowed to call at British harbours unhindered. To do so, however, they had to use the treaty flag of the maritime peace treaty on land and at sea, the "White Pierced Red" used in the British navy, apparently a previous square signalling flag. It was square white with a red square in the centre, one-ninth the size of the total area of the flag. However, in times of war, all signatories were allowed to revert to their previous flags. The treaty flag, the "White Pierced Red", was not very popular with the pacified Arabs, and when it was used, its shape was changed to an elongated form common in the region. However, the Al-Qawasim adopted the design as the flag of their emirates and it is still used there today. With the peace treaty, the competing Hinawi and Ghafiri sheikhs saw the Al-Qawasim as being more responsible than themselves. Over the years, it became clear to the sheikhs that they had to use the same flag as the Al-Qawasim, or even had to adopt their flag. Dubai, which only came into being in 1833 as a secession from Abu Dhabi by the Al Abu Falasa clan under the Al Maktum family, rejected the "White Pierced Red" for the aforementioned reasons and used a single-coloured red flag with a white stripe on the mast as the treaty flag, and from 1936 even as the national and state flag, as it was used then and is used today by Bahrain and Qatar (perhaps modelled on theirs) and as it is still used today by Ajman. Abu Dhabi also adopted this model many years later, probably from 1905, and used it until 1958. The peace treaty is also said to have stipulated that the Bani Yas tribes in Abu Dhabi and Dubai were allowed to use their single-coloured red flag as a war flag as usual. The old flag, which was permitted under the maritime peace treaty in the event of war, could have been used until 1892, because in that year United Kingdom established its protectorate and took over the foreign and defence policy of the contracting states. The current flag of Dubai was introduced in 1936 by adopting the flag of the maritime peace treaty – the single-coloured red flag with the white stripe on the mast – as the national and state flag. Before the introduction of the treaty flag of British origin in the colours white and red, single-coloured red flags were used by the Ghafiri and Hinawi, i.e. also in Abu Dhabi. In the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region, red is a traditional flag colour that is closely associated with Islam, as it is the colour of the sherifs of Mecca and is a symbol of the Islamic Kharijites living in eastern Arabia. All Islamic dynasties that refer to the origin of the Alawites (also called Alids, descendants of Ali → e.g. today's Morocco, former North Yemen) have or had red flags.

Source: Wikipedia (EN), Flags of the World, Volker Preuß

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Coat of Arms


Wappen coat of arms Dubai Dubei Dubayy
Coat of arms of Dubai,
Source: Regierung von Dubai, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Map


Source: by UAE_en-map.png: Chumwa [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Map of the country:

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Numbers and Facts

Area: 1.588 square miles

Inhabitants: 3.478.300 (2021), thereof 85 % Foreigners

Density of Population: 2.319 inh./sq.mi.

Capital: Dubai, ca. 2.950.000 inh. (2021)

official Language: Arabic

other Languages: English, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi

Currency: 1 VAE-Dirham (Dh., AED) = 100 Fils

Time Zone: GMT + 4 h

Source: Wikipedia (DE), Wikipedia (EN)

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History

4th millennium B.C. · first settlement

ca. 1st millennium B.C. · settlement by Arabs

4th to 7th century A.D. · the area of the today's emirates belongs to the Persian Sassanid Empire

630 · introduction of Islam

632 · apostasy

634 · the area of the today's emirates is conquered by the Arab Caliphate, re-Islamization

middle ages · the area of the today's emirates belongs to Oman

16th century · military and commercial operations of the Portuguese

ca. 1650 · under the control of the Ottoman Empire

ca. 1750 · conquest by Bedouins, Beginning of piracy, the area is called "Pirate Coast"

1761 · establishing of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi by the the Banu Yas

1806–1819 · actions of the British navy against the pirates

1820 · Peace Treaty for the end of piracy

1833 · establishing of the Emirate of Dubai as a separation from Abu Dhabi by the Al Abu Falasa lineage under leadership of the Al Maktoum Family

1834 · renewal of the peace treaty

1853 · renewal of the peace treaty, "Perpetual Maritime Truce", Dubai becomes part of the "Trucial Oman", also called "Trucial States"

1892 · United Kingdom establishes its protectorate over the emirates

1939 · establishment of a British resident of the Trucial States (Emirates), seat: Dubai

2nd of December 1971 · United Kingdom grants independence to Dubai, establishing of the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai and Umm Al Quwain)

Source: Wikipedia (DE), World Statesmen, Discovery '97, Volker Preuß

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Origin of the Country's Name

The emirate is named after its capital city, "Dubai". Even 200 years ago, the place, was called "Al Wasl", today a district of Dubai City. The word "Dubai" can not be translated, it is only possible to suppose about its meaning and origin. It is believed the one hand, a Persian origin, the other derivates from the Arabic word "Daba", which means among other things "creep" and could refer to a small river in the area. "Daba" also means "locust". The Arabic pronunciation is represented very differently in Latin script, so that there are different spellings, so even Dubei oder Dubayy.

Source: Wikipedia (EN), Volker Preuß

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