Transport and infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates

Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates with the average of all countries in Asia. Overall, the traffic routes are above average and in good condition.

In terms of the length of its rail network, United Arab Emirates ranks 122nd in the world with 0.03 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 261 kilometers long.

› Airports in the United Arab Emirates

Back to overview: United Arab Emirates

Road traffic

The network of roads and highways has a total length of 4,080 km. For each of the country's 9.37 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 0.44 meters. This puts United Arab Emirates in 226th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 112 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.

With an average of 1372 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in the United Arab Emirates is considered reasonably safe. This corresponds to 15.0 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.

In the United Arab Emirates, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	United Arab Emirates
Roadways	4,100 km	435.66 km	48.80 m
Railroads	300 km	27.87 km	3.12 m
Waterways	0 km	0.00 km	0.00 m
Commercial harbors	623	66.52	0.007
Airports	8	0.85	0.096

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	Asia
Roadways	16,613,000 km	3,547.96 km	519.50 m
Railroads	280,000 km	59.81 km	8.76 m
Waterways	260,300 km	55.59 km	8.14 m
Commercial harbors	45,998	9.82	0.001
Airports	1,012	0.22	0.000

Data sources used

• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)
• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)

Largest airports and airlines in the United Arab EmiratesThe 8 biggest airports and 6 airlines in the United Arab Emirates with further information and data with further information on airlines and destinations

Climate details in the United Arab EmiratesA climate analysis for the United Arab Emirates incl. temperatures, humidity, rain days per month, hours of sunshine, water temperature, rainfalls

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