Geography Lesson

I've had a couple questions as to where exactly is the United Arab Emirates. So... here are a few maps. The first two are general maps. The third map is also a general map, but shows some additional detail for the next blog entry. Quick lesson on the UAE: The UAE is composed of 7 emirates; Abu Dhabi is by far the largest. Dubai, Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain make up the balance. We might think of an emirate as a state, within the country that is the UAE. They think of emirates as countries within a greater alliance that is the UAE.

Here's an overview of where the UAE is globally.

We zoom in a little bit this time to see where the UAE is located within the Middle East. Note Saudi Arabia to the West, Oman to the South, and Iran to the North.

This is a closer view of the UAE. I've highlighted Ajman, where my office and project are both located. There's a callout box on the right that says "UAE - Inside Oman - Inside UAE." The border between UAE and Oman is interesting, at the least. While Saudi Arabia borders the UAE to the south, Oman borders the UAE to the east. However Oman also borders the UAE to the north, though there is no connecting landmass between these two parts. To make the border more confusing, there is a small part of Oman located COMPLETELY inside the UAE. Continuing to complicate things, there is an even smaller part of the UAE within the small part of Oman, contained completely by the UAE. It is to this even smaller part of the UAE to which John and I decided we must travel as you can read about in the upcoming entry.

If you want any further information, I recomend Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_arab_emirates

Thanks to google maps for making it easy to use your maps.