The emirates of UAE are

Question

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Correct — A, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah, Ras Al-Khaimah. The UAE Government's own portal (u.ae, 'The Seven Emirates') names exactly these seven and no others: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. The same portal's fact sheet describes the country as "a constitutional federation of seven emirates" and lists the five federal authorities the Constitution provides for — the Supreme Council, the President and the Vice-President, the Cabinet, the Federal National Council and the Federal Judiciary. The seven are not a loose grouping of cities: under Articles 45–50 the Federal Supreme Council is the highest constitutional authority in the country, it "consists of the Rulers of all the emirates composing the Federation", and "each emirate has a single vote in the deliberations of the Council". The number seven is therefore the number of votes in the state's supreme body, which is why the roster is fixed and closed. The portal also dates the union's assembly precisely, and those dates are what make the wrong options wrong. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan became Ruler of Abu Dhabi on 6 August 1966; he met Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai at Al Samha on 18 February 1968, and from 25 to 27 February 1968 the rulers of nine states — the seven Trucial States plus Bahrain and Qatar — held a constitutional conference in Dubai and agreed an eleven-point basis for a proposed 'Federation of the Arab Emirates'. Bahrain and Qatar left those talks and took independence separately. On 18 July 1971 the rulers of six of the seven Trucial States, Ras Al Khaimah excepted, declared the union in the words the portal still quotes: "the Supreme Council … declares the United Arab Emirates as an independent sovereign state being a part of the Arab World." The federation was formally established on 2 December 1971 — the UAE's National Day — with Zayed as founding father and first President until his death in 2004, and Ras Al Khaimah acceded on 10 February 1972 as the seventh and last emirate. The internal hierarchy is worth carrying, because BPSC and UPSC both mine it: Abu Dhabi is the federal capital and by far the largest emirate at 67,340 sq km, with a 2024 population of 4.14 million and a GDP of AED 1.2 trillion (about USD 326 billion); Dubai is second at about 3,759,864; Sharjah third with 1.8 million (2022); Ras Al Khaimah fourth at roughly 345,000; Ajman is the smallest of the seven (504,846 in 2017) and Umm Al Quwain the second smallest and least populated (49,159 at the 2005 count); Fujairah, 202,667 in 2014, is the only emirate lying wholly on the eastern coast, facing the Gulf of Oman rather than the Arabian Gulf. Option (a) is the only list that carries all seven of those names and nothing else.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Only four of these seven are emirates — Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman and Umm Al-Quwain. Jeddah is a Saudi Arabian city in Makkah Province on the Red Sea, the gateway port through which pilgrims reach Mecca, and it sits inside a unitary kingdom that has provinces and appointed governors, not rulers with a seat on a federal council. Kuwait and Bahrain are sovereign states with their own seats at the United Nations and their own membership of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council — and a state that is itself a GCC member cannot simultaneously be a constituent emirate of another GCC member. The list also omits three real emirates: Abu Dhabi (the federal capital and largest emirate), Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah. Missing Abu Dhabi alone is enough to reject it.  (c) Four real emirates (Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah, Ras Al-Khaimah, Dubai) padded out with three Saudi Arabian cities: Riyadh is Saudi Arabia's national capital in the interior Najd, Dammam is the administrative seat of the oil-bearing Eastern Province on the Arabian Gulf coast, and Taif is the highland city of Makkah Province long used as a summer seat of government. None of the three is a federal unit of anything — Saudi Arabia is a unitary kingdom divided into provinces under governors appointed by the King, so no Saudi city has a ruler who could sit on the UAE's Supreme Council. Three genuine emirates are missing from the list: Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman, which are the first, third and smallest of the seven respectively.  (d) The most dangerous option, because five of its seven entries are genuine emirates and only the last two are wrong. Bahrain and Kuwait are independent Arab states that have never been part of the UAE. Bahrain feels plausible for a reason a well-read candidate can actually cite: it was one of the nine states whose rulers met in Dubai from 25 to 27 February 1968 and agreed the eleven-point basis for a 'Federation of the Arab Emirates', alongside Qatar and the seven Trucial States — but Bahrain and Qatar both walked away and took independence separately in 1971, and only the seven Trucial States federated. Kuwait was never even in those talks; it had already been independent since 1961. The option also silently drops two real emirates, Umm Al-Quwain and Ras Al-Khaimah, so it fails the completeness test as well as the intruder test.

Concept: The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven hereditary monarchies on the south-eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, facing the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. Their modern shape was cut by British sea power rather than by dynastic conquest. The u.ae history timeline records that after the British defeated the Qawasim in 1820 they signed a series of agreements with the sheikhs of the individual emirates between 1820 and 1853, binding them to keep the peace at sea and to refrain from building large ships or fortifications along the coast — the truces from which the name 'Trucial States' comes. In 1892 Britain went further, entering into Exclusive Agreements under which, in the portal's own words, the Trucial States "could neither dispose any of their territories except to the United Kingdom nor enter into relationships with any foreign government without the consent of the United Kingdom", in return for British defence against foreign aggression. That arrangement froze the roster of sheikhdoms for three-quarters of a century. When Britain declared in early 1968 that it would withdraw from the Gulf by the end of 1971, the nine sheikhdoms then under those treaties — the seven Trucial States plus Bahrain and Qatar — met in Dubai from 25 to 27 February 1968 to negotiate a Federation of the Arab Emirates. Bahrain and Qatar took independence on their own; six Trucial States federated on 2 December 1971 and Ras Al Khaimah joined on 10 February 1972. The Constitution vests power in five federal authorities: the Supreme Council of Rulers, the President and Vice-President, the Cabinet, the Federal National Council and the Federal Judiciary. Considerable power stays with the individual emirates: each keeps its own ruler and its own administration, and every emirate — however small — has exactly one vote on the Supreme Council, so Umm Al Quwain with 49,159 people counts equally with Abu Dhabi's 4.14 million in that chamber.

State PCS 2023 Q84 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2023 Q84 — Geography PYQ with Answer