UAE is short for the United Arab Emirates, a country in the Middle East, on the east side of the Arabian Peninsula, next to Saudi Arabia and Oman. It is not one single piece of land with one ruler — it is seven small states (called emirates) that joined together in 1971 to make one country. Each emirate still has its own ruler. The two you hear about most are Abu Dhabi, which is the capital, and Dubai, which is the big business and shopping and flying city. The country got very rich from oil, and now also from trade, tourism and being a place where planes stop on the way between Asia and Europe. Many people from other countries live and work there; in fact most of the people in the UAE were not born there. In writing, we say 'the UAE' with 'the' in front, like 'the US' and 'the UK' — because the full name has 'the' in it. You say the three letters one by one: U-A-E. In speech, people often just say 'Dubai' when they mean the country, even though Dubai is only one part of it. Careful with 'Emirates': with a capital E and no 'United Arab', it usually means the airline from Dubai, not the country.