Where does the name Dubai come from?

 There are several theories as to how Dubai was named.

One theory is that the word Dubai is a combination of the Farsi words for two and brothers, the latter referring to Deira and Bur Dubai.

Others believe that ‘Dubai’ was so named by people who considered its souq a smaller version of a thriving market named ‘Daba’.

The image of oil tankers passing through the Straits of Hormuz, into the Indian Ocean, and so to the rest of the world seems quite modern, dating back only some fifty years or so. It is surprising to realize, then, that it is actually just the latest aspect of a tradition of maritime trade in the region which stretches back some 7,000 years. "In fact, the South and Southwest Asian regions, and the Gulf area in particular, have perhaps the richest and longest running seafaring tradition of any world region."1

The Arabian Gulf, or al-Khaleej al-Arabi in Arabic, lies between the Arabian Peninsula and Southwest Asia. It is connected by the Straits of Hormuz to the Arabian Sea, the northwest part of the Indian Ocean. The Gulf is some 615 miles long and has a maximum width of 210 miles, with an area of about 93,000 square miles. It is a shallow body of water, with a maximum depth of 360 feet, and due to hydrological conditions does not develop high waves. Despite high temperatures and humidity, the Gulf rarely sees storms and gale-force winds, and therefore is an easily navigable body of water, unlike its neighbour, the Red Sea. For several millennia these two bodies of water served as primary routes of interaction between the great civilizations of the East and the Mediterranean.