Heart of the Empty Quarter — towering red dunes and the ancestral home of Abu Dhabi's ruling family
Liwa Oasis is a crescent of villages and date-palm gardens on the northern edge of the Rub' al Khali — the Empty Quarter, the world's largest continuous sand desert. The oasis is the ancestral homeland of the Al Nahyan family (Abu Dhabi's rulers) and one of the largest oases in the Arabian Peninsula, with over 50 villages linked by a single road that curves through dunes reaching 300 metres — among the tallest in the world. The Moreeb Dune (300m high, 50° slope) is the site of an annual motorsport festival; but for most visitors, Liwa is simply the most accessible gateway to the overwhelming…
The Bani Yas tribe, ancestors of Abu Dhabi's ruling family, settled the Liwa Oasis as a summer refuge and date-palm cultivation centre centuries ago, moving between the coastal pearling camps in winter and the inland oasis in summer. The oasis sustained one of the most isolated human populations on Earth until the oil era — the nearest towns were days away by camel. The discovery of oil beneath the Abu Dhabi coast in 1958 transformed the UAE; the Al Nahyan moved their capital to Abu Dhabi island, but Liwa remains their ancestral seat, visited by the ruling family and a place of pilgrimage for…