Thirty million sheep and five million people on islands so pretty Peter Jackson just filmed the lot.
Fun fact: Apart from two bat species, it has no native land mammals — birds filled every ecological niche instead.
Forty years ago it was mostly desert, now there's an indoor ski slope and a man-made archipelago shaped like a palm tree.
Fun fact: Roughly 90% of the UAE's population are foreign nationals, one of the highest ratios on Earth.