Abu Dhabi

People have lived on and around the island for a very long time — Bronze Age tombs on Umm an-Nar, just off the coast, gave their name to a culture of the third millennium BC, and a monastery on Sir Bani Yas dates from the Christian communities of the Gulf before Islam. The modern city begins in the 1760s, when members of the Bani Yas confederation moved from the Liwa oasis after finding fresh water on the island. A watchtower over the well grew into Qasr Al Hosn, and the Al Nahyan family ruled from it.

For nearly two centuries Abu Dhabi lived from pearling, fishing and dates, poorer than its neighbours and harder hit when the pearl trade collapsed in the 1930s. Oil changed that: found in commercial quantity in the late 1950s and exported from 1962, it made the emirate wealthy almost overnight. In 1966 Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan became ruler and set about spending the revenue on roads, housing, schools and planting, and on the creation of a federation. Abu Dhabi became the capital of the United Arab Emirates at its founding on 2 December 1971, and Sheikh Zayed was its president until his death in 2004.

The last twenty-five years have been spent turning oil money into something else: sovereign wealth funds among the world's largest, an airline and a new airport terminal, the Grand Mosque completed in 2007, the Yas Island circuit in 2009, Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2017, and the Zayed National Museum in 2025 among the university campuses and museums of Saadiyat. The city was among the places struck by Iranian drones and missiles in the opening days of the war that began in February 2026.

Abu Dhabi presents itself as the country's cultural and political centre, and the contrast with Dubai is deliberate: lower buildings, wider gardens, state museums rather than malls, and a slower, more formal tone. Emirati citizens are a larger share of the population here than in Dubai, and the city's rhythms — Friday prayers, family gatherings, the majlis where a host receives visitors — are correspondingly more visible.

Traditional pursuits are taken seriously and funded accordingly. Falconry is a national passion with its own hospital and heritage listing, camel racing runs on tracks outside the city in winter, and dhow sailing and rowing races are held off the Corniche. Poetry in the Nabati dialect, the ayyala line dance with its rhythmic canes, and the coffee ritual of gahwa poured from a long-spouted dallah are all part of public occasions, and the Heritage Village and Qasr Al Hosn present them to visitors.

Over that sits an imported cultural layer: the Louvre's loan galleries, a classical music and opera season, university campuses of foreign institutions on Saadiyat, and an international sporting calendar. Manners are courteous and indirect; greetings are lengthy, the right hand is used for giving and eating, and modesty in dress and behaviour is expected in public. The rules that matter are clear and enforced — nothing critical of the rulers, no drugs, no public drunkenness — and same-sex relationships are criminalised.

About 2.5 million people live in the city's urban area, and roughly four in five are foreign nationals — Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Egyptian and many others — working on employer-linked visas, with a larger Emirati share of the population than Dubai. Government and the state-owned energy, investment and aviation companies dominate employment, which gives the working day a more regular shape than Dubai's: offices from early morning, a Monday-to-Friday week, and the weekend beginning on Friday afternoon.

The island's older districts hold apartment blocks where most middle-income residents live, while villas and compounds spread across the bridges into Khalifa City, Mohamed Bin Zayed City and Al Shamkha, and much of the labour force is housed on the mainland and bussed to work. Rents are high, though lower than in Dubai, and there is no income tax.

Life is lived indoors for much of the year and outdoors from November to March, when the Corniche fills in the evenings with families, walkers and cyclists, the parks are used and barbecues appear on the beaches. Mangroves fringing the city are being protected and replanted, water comes almost entirely from desalination, and the plans for solar power, a nuclear station at Barakah and further museums are a constant subject. Since February 2026 the war and its effect on flights, shipping and insurance has been part of everyday conversation.

Emirati cooking is easier to find here than in Dubai, and local restaurants serve it plainly: machboos, rice cooked with meat, chicken or fish, dried lime and warm spices; harees, wheat and meat beaten to a smooth porridge, eaten especially in Ramadan; thareed, a meat and vegetable stew poured over thin bread; and madrooba, salted fish pounded with flour and spices. Fish is central — hammour, kingfish, sheri and prawns from the Gulf, grilled whole or baked in rice as sayadiah.

Sweets and drinks follow the same tradition. Luqaimat, small fried dough balls in date syrup with sesame; balaleet, sweet vermicelli under a thin omelette, eaten at breakfast; dates in dozens of varieties sold by weight at the Mina market; and gahwa, pale coffee scented with cardamom and saffron, poured from a dallah into small cups and refilled until the cup is tilted. Camel milk, plain or as ice cream, is sold widely.

The everyday food of the city, though, belongs to its migrants: South Indian canteens, Pakistani grills, Lebanese mezze houses, Egyptian koshari, Iranian bakeries and Filipino kitchens, concentrated in Al Zahiyah, Al Khalidiyah and the mainland suburbs. At Mina Zayed the fish market's stalls will cook the catch bought a few metres away, which is as close as the city comes to a signature meal.