Have you ever heard of the city of Dubai? If you're not familiar with the eastern part of the world, you'll probably answer 'no.' However, get ready, this city is about to put itself on the map. How? By encompassing the tallest free-standing building in the world and becoming an international tourist attraction.

Located in the United Arab Emirates, the city of Dubai is already known for it's free zone which attracts foreign corporations. As a result, it has become a major business hub in the middle east attracting a variety of people to its borders. As a matter of fact, most of the population of the city of Dubai are non-Emiratis. Most residents are implants from other countries like Hong Kong. However, the planners of this city are not satisfied with it only being known for business, they also want to make it a international tourist draw.

By 2010, it is estimated that about ten million people will visit Dubai. As a result, the city wants to profit from its visitors by providing people with sites to see, entertainment and excellent shopping. For this reason, South Korea's Samsung is paying to build the Burj Dubai along with Dubai Land (akin to Disneyland) and Dubai Mall. The hope is that all of the money being poured into this city now to make it great will come back ten-fold through massive tourism sales.
So how far are they now into the project?

The Burj Dubai as well as the other projects are still under construction. However, the Burj Dubai is receiving attention now because it recently surpassed the CN Tower in height. Built in 1976, the CN Tower located in Toronto has been the tallest free-standing building for years. It's estimated to be 1,824.9 feet tall. The Burj Dubai is now taller standing at 1,831.5 feet. The final height of the building is said allegedly aimed for 2,313 feet. However, the end result won't be truly known until the building's completion.

If this project is a success, the new hangout for the world might be in Dubai. Real-estate near the area is already on sale. This project is being named as one of the selling points. We'll know in a few years if the investors in Dubai were right and if that name becomes common place in millions of homes across the world.

Did you know?

The Burj Dubai will have an observation deck - indoor and outdoor. Also, it's gross square feet is estimated to be at 3,378,137.6.

Last Friday the 155th floor was completed on Burj Dubai. By yesterday the 156th floor was finished on a building that, at 585.7m (1,922ft) and still growing, is already the world’s tallest tower block.

By the time that Emaar, the largest property company in Dubai, completes the Burj (the Tower), it will rise to 164 floors, to be capped by a spire that will add a few more precious metres. The developers are said to be able to add on more floors if they wish at a later date to ensure that the Burj can see off any competition that might threaten its status as the world’s tallest building.

Such figures set pulses racing in Dubai, a city that resembles a cross between Vancouver and Manhattan, with a smack of the garish self-confidence that hitherto only Las Vegas could muster. Local master planners privately refer to developers’ love of skyscrapers as “architorture”.

It is not only the property developers who are in thrall to what locals regard as an obsession with everything ending in “est”: biggest, tallest, best. The emirate’s rapidly growing population � 30,000 people arrive each month � has bought into a vision of world domination handed down from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum to the people he governs as absolute ruler.

People in Dubai who can spare a few thousand dirhams are playing the property game. If they are not working directly in real estate � and that includes a considerable proportion of the population � most are in property investment speculation, buying half a dozen flats at a time off-plan and holding them until completion or “flipping” them � selling the rights to the homes for a profit within a year.

Prices of Dubai apartments have soared 125 per cent over the past year around the Burj, catalysed by new laws that came into force only at the start of this year allowing, for the first time, foreign ownership of residential property. House-price inflation in other parts of the city has risen by between 20 per cent and 100 per cent over the past year, mirroring similar rates of annual inflation every year since the turn of the millennium.

Dozens of high-rise luxury apartment blocks litter Dubai, all about 97 per cent let. Scores of similar projects are under way, dominated by the big players, such as Emaar, the largest quoted developer, Nakheel and Dubai Properties, which are controlled by the State, and Damac Holding, one of the emirate’s largest privately run residential property developers and owned by Hussain Sajwani. Damac has 79 housing blocks under development and the company will have handed more than 10 per cent of its presold properties by the end of the year.

By the time that Damac lays the first brick on a tower block, it will have presold about 80 per cent of the units with cash in the bank � buyers pay by instalment � covering about 40 per cent of the built value of the entire site. That means that Damac has broken even on its tower blocks before it has started construction.

“In just under five years we have moved 11,000 units to 116 nationalities,” Peter Riddich, the chief executive of Damac, said. British citizens account for about 30 per cent of Damac’s buyers, followed by nearly as many Iranian purchasers, with the balance dominated by a mix from India, Pakistan, other Gulf states, Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union.

Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai and Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, has a vision to transform Dubai into a huge financial trading centre. The idea is to attract massive amounts of foreign workers and capital to an emirate that did not have the natural resources of Abu Dhabi, its larger, oil-rich neighbour. One of the key methods of his strategy has been to turn Dubai from a sleepy town into a huge building zone, which is starting to rival Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, in population.

Blair Hagkull, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle, the property agency, who is based in Dubai said: “We are halfway through a 30-year cycle and, at the end of it, Dubai will be where other cities took 100 years.”

Emaar Properties' Burj Dubai is four months behind schedule and may now not be finished by the end of this year as originally planned, it has been revealed.

Emaar Chairman Mohamed Alabbar said on Tuesday the world's tallest structure would not be finished on time, without giving further details as to the reason for the delay.

"We are about four months late," Alabbar told reporters.

Emaar said last month construction on the tower had been stepped up to meet an "accelerated schedule", without giving further details.

An Emaar official said in July the Burj Dubai would open sometime before Christmas this year, which means the tower may not now be finished until spring 2009.

Work on the Burj Dubai was delayed in November when around 40,000 labourers employed by Arabtec, one of the construction companies working on the project, went on strike for a week over pay and conditions.

Arabtec Executive Director Tom Berry said at the time the strikes could cause the company miss completion dates for some of its key projects in Dubai.

The Burj Dubai currently stands at just over 600 metres, over 90 metres higher than the world's tallest building, Taiwan's Taipei 101, and over 40 metres higher than the world's tallest free-standing structure, Toronto's CN Tower.

The only structure now left for the Burj to overtake is the KVLY/KTHI television mast in Blanchard, US, which measures 628.8 metres.

The Burj Dubai will not be officially recognised as the world's tallest structure until it is completed.

Emaar has remained tight lipped over the final height, but it is rumoured to be between 700 and 1,000 metres.

Local media reports last year said the final height would be 818 metres, citing architects drawings posted on the internet.

The Burj Dubai is to be the centrepiece of a city within a city, Downtown Burj Dubai. The $20 billion development as a whole will include 30,000 homes, nine hotels, 6.2 acres of parkland, 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and a 30-acre manmade lake. The development will cost around $20 billion.