Known for its luxury shopping and its ultra-modern lifestyle, Dubai is a tourist’s paradise, with places like the Burj Dubai gracing its magnificent skyline. Along with having the world’s tallest building, Dubai also has the biggest flower garden and the largest aquarium of the world! Think that’s awesome? Wait till you read the following 12 facts about Dubai – you’ll be blown away!

1 The locals constitute less than 20% of the population there.

The reason for this is exponential immigration, which has led to the drowning out of the local Emirati population, making them feel like strangers in their own land, owing to Dubai being something of a melting pot of cultures and people from across the world. However, everyone gets along wonderfully well, and the city has an extremely low crime rate, with violent crimes almost unheard of, and a society that is relatively peaceful.(source)

2 As opposed to 1 skyscraper in 1991, Dubai now has over 400.

The only skyscraper in Dubai – the World Trade Center – now has company to boast of. Today, the Sheikh Zayed Road, where it is situated, has transformed into a Skyscraper Avenue, with both sides of the street lined by tall, majestic buildings, one of which is the Burj Dubai – the tallest building in the world.(source)

3 In Dubai, if you lose, you gain: the government pays its citizens 2 grams of gold for every kg of body weight they lose!

In a bid to encourage people to lose weight, the Dubai government awards its citizens 2g of gold for every kg they lose. Children between the ages of 2 and 14 are given 2g of gold for every kg lost, and only two children can participate per family. In 2013, the program, which then focused only on adults, paid out $762,340 in gold.(source)

4 In Dubai, you can get pizza delivered to your door by pushing a fridge magnet.

Suddenly crave a pizza, but too lazy to hunt for the number, or go online to order one? Looks like Red Tomato Pizza in Dubai may just have come up with the perfect solution: a fridge magnet. This magnet developed by the company is a pizza-shaped magnet that has a direct line to the pizzeria; all one has to do is tap it to be connected to the pizzeria online via Bluetooth, and place one’s order. Easy as that.(source)

5 Dubai is building an entertainment complex which will cost about 150,000 times the 2012 revenue of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. 

Dubailand, as it will be dubbed, is said to cost about US $64.3 billion. To give you some perspective, the total revenue of the Susan G. Komen foundation in 2012 was $428,897.(source)

6 The Dubai police fleet includes a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and a Bentley to allow them to catch speeding drivers who can outrun other cars.

It’s one hell of a police fleet that boasts a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, introduced in a bid to catch speeding drivers and curb road deaths and injuries.(source)