Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Abu Dhabi
- Region
- Asia, Western Asia
- Population
- 11,513,149 (2025)
- Area
- 82,880 km²
- Currency
- United Arab Emirates dirham (AED)
- Languages
- Arabic, Persian, English, Hindi, Urdu
- Calling code
- +971
- Internet domain
- .ae, امارات.
- ISO codes
- AE, ARE, 784
- Time zone
- UTC+4:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ##### ##### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
The United Arab Emirates covers about 82,880 square kilometres. By area it ranks 118th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Austria and a little larger than Czechia. It shares a land border with 2 neighbours: Oman, Saudi Arabia. Its centre lies at about 24° north, 54° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 11.5 million people live in the United Arab Emirates (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 86th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.14 percent of the world's people. On average there are 139 people to each square kilometre. About 86 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 83 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Arabic, Persian, English, Hindi, Urdu. A person from the United Arab Emirates is called Emirati.
Money and economy
The currency is the United Arab Emirates dirham (code AED, symbol د.إ). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 552 billion (2024), which is about US$ 50,274 for each person (2024).
Time
The United Arab Emirates uses one time zone, UTC+4:00 (Asia/Dubai). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Dubai | 3,790,000 |
| Abu Dhabi | 1,807,000 |
| Sharjah | 1,800,000 |
| Al Ain City | 846,747 |
| Ajman | 490,035 |
| Ras Al Khaimah | 351,943 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Asia
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.