According to Dubai Tries to Find Its Place in the World In the Record Books, “as Dubai’s wealth grew in recent years, so did the world’s biggest Napoleon complex”:
Not far from the world’s biggest man-made island and the world’s tallest hotel here is a luxury apartment building that will be topped by the world’s highest and largest sundial.A few minutes down the road, construction has begun on the world’s tallest building, to be flanked by the world’s most spacious shopping mall, housing the world’s largest indoor aquarium. Each March, the nearby racetrack runs the world’s richest horse race, with a $6 million purse.
“All over Dubai, you have so many world records,” says Bevis Douyers, restaurant manager at the Ramada Dubai Hotel. “This one’s old — almost 25 years,” he says, gazing up the hotel’s 12-story atrium at the world’s largest stained-glass mural.
Dubai, a city-state in the United Arab Emirates with a population of a little more than one million, would rank as one of the world’s smallest countries on its own. Helped by the draw of year-round sun and desert-sand beaches, it boasts one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. But until a few years ago, it was one of the world’s least-known destinations.
To grab a place on the world map, locals turned to the Guinness Book of World Records, with stunts like building the world’s longest sofa (100 feet), lighting the largest number of candles on a cake (2,100) and creating the world’s largest incense burner (10 feet tall). In a sign of its global perspective, Dubai in 1998 financed the world’s first cross between an Arabian camel and an Andean llama, dubbed a cama.