The Dubai Islands, formerly known as the Deira Islands ( ar, جزر ديرة) are four undeveloped

artificial island An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...

s off the coast of

Deira, Dubai Deira (In Arabic: ديرة) is a historically significant district within the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates bordered by the Persian Gulf, Sharjah and Al Awir. It is located at the northern end of the Dubai Creek. History Deira is one o ...

, United Arab Emirates. The project was initially called Palm Deira and was planned to be part of the

Palm Islands The Palm Islands are three artificial islands, Palm Jumeirah, Deira Island and Palm Jebel Ali, on the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Palm Islands were conceived around the same time as The World, another artificial island project i ...

. As of 2021, little development has taken place on the islands due to the

financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...

History

Palm Deira

In 2004, Dubai developer

Nakheel Nakheel Properties ( ar, نَـخٍـيْـل, nakhīl, palm tree) is a property developer based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The formal name of the company is Nakheel PJSC (private joint stock company) and it was a subsidiary of Dubai World a ...

launched the Palm Deira project as an 11 billion dirham property development off the coast of Deira in Dubai that was due to contain up to 8,000 villas. Dutch dredging contractor Van Oord was recruited to start the project in 2005. By early October 2007, 20% of the initial palm island's reclamation was complete, with a total of of sand already used. Then in early April 2008, Nakheel announced that more than a quarter of the total area of the Palm Deira had been reclaimed. In the wake of the

, Nakheel had put projects like the

Palm Jebel Ali Palm Jebel Ali () is an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates which began construction in October 2002, was originally planned to be completed by mid-2008 and has been on hold since. Creative Kingdom provided master planning ser ...

The World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

and Palm Deira on hold since 2008.

Rebranding as Deira Islands

In October 2013, Nakheel re-branded and scaled down the project as Deira Islands. Deira Islands were developed to include the Deira Night Souk, Deira Mall, and Deira Island Towers and Boulevard on the islands to develop it into a shopping, retail, and housing waterfront. The project added of coastline and of beach to Dubai. In December 2016 a bridge linking the mainland to the islands were opened.

Restart and rebranding as Dubai Islands

In 2022, Nakheel rebranded itself and the project. It was renamed Dubai Islands and it is expected to house 80 hotels. The project has been restarted and no official opening date has been announced

Planned Features

Deira Night Souk

The Deira Night Souk is planned to be a market place that stretch along the coast of the Deira Islands opposite the mainland. According to the developers, Deira Night Souk will be the biggest night market in the world, but no construction of the souk took place.

Deira Mall

Deira Mall is planned to be a mall with 1,100 retail spaces that is being developed on the islands. The design contract of the mall was awarded in June 2014, but never started construction.

References

External links

Official website
{{Developments in Dubai Nakheel Properties Resorts in Dubai Artificial islands of Dubai Waterfronts Proposed buildings and structures in Dubai