- ISO 3166
AE- Primary locale
ar-AE- Currency
- AED · United Arab Emirates Dirham
- Region
- EMEA · MENA · MENAP
United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates has 10M people, and 10M of them are online. Arabic is the most widely spoken language at 78%, one of 6 languages CLDR lists here. Arabic is official nationally. A product shipping here defaults to ar-AE.
At a glance
Each figure is drawn against the rest of the world, so a number means something before you have any other market to compare it with.
People online
10M
0%world median 81%100%
100% of 10M people use the internet, per the World Bank's 2024 figure. CLDR population multiplied by that share, so read it as an estimate rather than a headcount.
Income per person
$50,274
Higher than 85% of 213 territories
GDP per capita in current US dollars, World Bank Open Data, most recent reported year. A rough guide to what people can spend, not what your product will earn.
Can pay online
86%
0%world median 71%100%
Adults aged 15 and over holding a bank or mobile-money account, World Bank Global Findex 2021. Below half means a card-only checkout excludes most of the market.
Languages
6
Arabic 78% · English 50% · Malayalam 7%
Languages CLDR records here with a share of 0.1% or more. 1 of them is official nationally.
English proficiency
487
Very lowVery high
Low proficiency on the EF EPI 2025 scale. The sample is self-selected online test takers, so treat it as colour for a discussion. It never enters any score on this site.
Adult literacy
90%
0%world median 95%100%
Share of adults who can read, as recorded in CLDR territory data. Low literacy shifts a product toward icons, audio, and video before it shifts toward another language.
What people speak
Shares count first and second languages, so they sum past 100% and one bilingual person is counted twice.
Most spoken in United Arab Emirates
share of 10M people
Filled bars are nationally official languages. Every bar is drawn against the largest language rather than against 100%, so a 1% language stays visible.
One country understates a language. CLDR records diaspora too, so a language usually reaches further than any single page shows. The language profiles show each one's full footprint.
What you would ship
Configuration for day one, computed live with Intl.* against ar-AE, the dominant locale for this market.
Plural categories
6
Translator catalog must define all categories. Engineering must use Intl.PluralRules.
Script family
Arabic
Bundle a Noto-class webfont that covers this script. OS defaults vary.
Reading direction
Right-to-left
Use logical CSS properties (padding-inline-start, etc.). Wrap interpolated LTR with <bdi> or FSI/PDI.
Date
21 أبريل 2026
Short: 21/4/2026
Time
6:30 م
Week starts Mon
Currency
1,234.56 د.إ.
1,234.56 in AED · United Arab Emirates Dirham
The engineering behind the flags: Bidirectional text: why the dollar sign wanders in an RTL string · RTL layouts: what flips and what doesn't · Font fallback: why the OS picks the wrong glyphs for this script · Plural rules: why each category needs its own translation