Timeframe: how Dubai Creek has (and hasn't) changed in 55 years

The waterway has been transformed but is also somehow the same as ever

The creek in Dubai circa 1937. Getty Images

Boats on the Creek in Dubai, with the Customs House in the background, 1967. Getty Images

A view across Dubai Creek in 1967. Getty Images

Dubai Creek in 1964. Photo: Alamy

Ships in 1967 unloading goods on the creek for the Customs Department in Dubai. Getty Images

Dubai Creek, April 1968, taken from a Beaver flying to Sir Bani Yas Island. Photo: Nevile Ryton

Dubai Creek in 1976. Photo: Wam / AFP

The Carlton Hotel on the banks of the Creek in Dubai, circa 1978. The property was later rebuilt as the Carlton Tower Hotel. Getty Images

The mouth of the Creek, circa 1978. Getty Images

Dubai Creek in October, 1977. Getty Images

The building on the right is the National Bank of Dubai.

The National Bank of Dubai building on the edge of Dubai Creek. Photo: Al Ittihad 

Dhows on the Creek in the 1970s. Photo: Al Ittihad

Racing driver Juan Manuel Fangio in Dubai on December 11, 1981. Getty Images

An aerial view of the opening of the Dubai Creek Golf and Marina Yacht Club golf course on January 1, 1993 in Dubai. Getty Images

The Creek in 1993. Alamy

The Creek in 1996. Getty Images

View of Bur Dubai and the Creek in 2015. Pawan Singh / The National

Water taxis, known as abras, on Dubai Creek in 2019 take people from Bur Dubai to Deira and back again at sunset. Chris Whiteoak / The National

Al Seef waterfront dining destination opens on Dubai Creek in 2017.

Dubai Creek from the Deira side of the city in 2015. Antonie Robertson / The National

Traditional ferry boats, known as abras, cross the Creek that separates Bur Dubai from Deira on January 6, 2022. AFP

A dhow crosses the Creek near the spice souq in 2022. Reem Mohammed / The National

Dubai Creek in May 2022. Chris Whiteoak / The National

As Dubai has transformed beyond recognition in the past few decades, its Creek has been a mainstay of this current of change.

The waterway is the home of a well-travelled trade network that has, since the early 19th century, been kept alive by hawkers, businessmen and artisans. It is where you'll find traditional dhows, still to this day ploughing up and down alongside abras, or water taxis, and speedboats filled with tourists looking for a glimpse of old Dubai from a new perspective.

The view from the Creek has, in many ways, changed irreversibly, and yet, at the same time, not much has shifted at all — as you can see from this Getty Images photo taken in May 1967, when compared with The National's image in May 2022.

Buildings have sprung up all around, as has an entire nation — the UAE was formed four years later, in 1971 — and a blossoming city that continues to transform today.

Yet the Creek's foundations run deep, its significance unquestioned in the face of enormous upheaval.

Back in the 1950s, Dubai life centred around it. Back then, Dubai was merely a town, with a population of about 20,000, with people living around Bur Dubai, Deira and Shindagha.

Vessels ploughed the Silk Route, trading goods such as wood and spices with East Africa and India, while pearling fleets left and returned from the spot during the diving season.

Around the middle of that decade, the decision was made to dredge Dubai Creek, an unprecedented and complex job that gives new meaning to the now regularly used term “mega-project”.

A build-up of silt was preventing larger ships from entering the waterway, and in a place that was then relying on its maritime trade for economic success, it was advised, among other things, that a 60-metre wide, 914m-long channel be cut from the bed in the Creek to the sea.

Work started in 1959, and was more or less finished by the early 1960s. As more ships arrived, new neighbourhoods and districts were established and life began to branch out from the Creek.

The year 1967 — when the above photo was taken — wasn't particularly remarkable in the history of Dubai when compared with other more significant dates. The population was about 59,000. In March, there was a smallpox outbreak. On May 1, the now-defunct Dubai Zoo opened.

But the tide was rapidly turning, as a town became a city, the population flourished and a simple creek became a passage to the world.