A city that didn't exist 50 years ago and now has the tallest building on Earth
Dubai was a modest pearl-diving and trading port until oil was discovered in 1966. In under 60 years it built the Burj Khalifa (828m, the world's tallest structure), the world's largest mall, an indoor ski slope in the desert, and a food scene that absorbs every cuisine on Earth because 90% of its population is foreign-born — Indian, Pakistani, Filipino, Arab, and Western expats who collectively created one of the world's most diverse dining cities by necessity. The city doesn't do restraint: if somewhere else has a big one, Dubai builds a bigger one.
Dubai's Al Maktoum ruling family has governed since 1833, when it split from Abu Dhabi. Oil revenues in the 1970s funded the initial building boom; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's sustained strategy from the 1990s onward was to build a post-oil economy based on tourism, finance, and trade before the wells ran dry. The 2020 Expo drew 24 million visitors and accelerated the shift. Today, oil contributes less than 1% of Dubai's GDP — the transformation Sheikh Mohammed bet the city on has largely worked.