Artificial Man-Made “Palm Island”
Estimated Value: $12 Billion
Manufacturer: Nakheel
Funded by Dubai’s substantial oil revenue, the construction of The Palm Islands amounted to a relatively modest $12 billion and was completed in just six years. Utilizing a high-tech GPS system, a fleet of dredgers worked non-stop to move and precisely deposit 120 million cubic meters of sand from the seabed to form the island’s trunk and fronds.
The Palm ‘Jumeirah’ hosts about fifteen hundred beachfront mansions across its seventeen fronds and six thousand apartments along the trunk, covering an area equivalent to six hundred soccer fields.
The volume of sand used for the Palm Jumeirah could construct a two-meter-high wall encircling the Earth three times, totaling 3.319 billion cubic feet of sand dredged from the ocean’s depths. The foundation alone incorporates seven million tons of rock sourced from the Hajar Mountains.
