Dubai has constructed the world’s most extravagant sand castles. With names like Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira, these massive manmade islands owe their existence to ostentatious ambitions and spectacular engineering feats.

The Palm Islands are an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructures will be constructed. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the United Arab Emirates, who hired Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractor Jan De Nul and Van Oord, some of the world’s specialists in land reclamation. The islands are the Palm Jumeirah, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira.