Palm Jumeirah

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The Palm Jumeirah

The Palm Jumeirah is the world's largest man-made island - a residential and tourism destination created by Nakheel, a key company in the transformation of Dubai from a sleepy fishing village into one of the fastest growing cities in the world. It is a part of the trilogy of three islands called The Palm Islands which will increase Dubai’s shoreline by a total of 520 kms.

1 Description
2 Construction
3 Hotels
4 Trivia
5 Map

[edit] Description

The Palm Jumeirah is in the shape of a palm tree. It consists of a trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometre-long breakwater. The island is 5 kilometres by 5 kilometres and its total area is larger than 800 football pitches. Land reclamation on this size and scale, notwithstanding achieving the complex shape of a palm tree, has never been achieved before. Only five years after the first sand was laid in the Persian Gulf The Palm Jumeirah is welcoming its first residents. The first phase of The Palm Jumeirah includes 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments and over the next 3 to 4 years, as the tourism phases develop, The Palm Jumeirah is touted as soon to be one of the world’s premier resorts.

[edit] Construction

The island has been entirely created using natural material. 94 million cubic metres of sand and 7 million tons of rock have been used – the amount of material used would create a 2 metre high and half a metre wall that would circle the globe three times. The Palm Jumeirah was created by pouring sand fill onto the 10.5 metre-deep seabed using dredgers. Above sea level, 3 metres of the reclamation were achieved by a dredging technique known as "rainbowing," in which the sand fill was sprayed over the surface of the rising island. Calcareous sand was used for the reclamation. The island includes the first ever curved breakwater. Most breakwaters around the world are created using concrete slabs, but Nakheel used natural rock to encourage the creation of a natural reef and provide habitats for sea life. The land form was reclaimed by the Dutch company Van Oord, who are world experts in land reclamation. Although land reclamation is a widely used engineering technique, this is the first time such a complex shape has been created.

[edit] Hotels

Over 30 beachfront hotels will be opened by the end of 2009, with most of the world’s top brands represented including:

The Trump International Hotel & Tower
Atlantis, The Palm
The Taj Exotica Hotel & Resort
Grandeur Residences
Tiara Residence
Oceana Residence
The Fairmont Palm Residence
The Fairmont Palm Hotel & Resort

[edit] Trivia

94 million cubic metres of sand and 7 million tons of rock have been used to create 78 kilometres of beaches; this will double the length of the Dubai coastline.

3 fighter jets have been stripped of environmentally harmful materials and sunk near The Palm Jumeirah to create an artificial reef, encouraging marine life.