Al Jazira Al Hamra

Al Jazira Al Hamra, meaning the Red Island, is a former pearling village on the coast of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. Once a tidal island settlement, it grew into a substantial town of coral-stone and beach-rock houses, a fort, mosques and wind towers, its economy built on pearl diving and Gulf trade. Widely regarded as the most complete surviving traditional pearling village in the region, most of it was abandoned in the late 1960s amid the economic changes that followed the pearl trade's decline and the oil era. It now appears on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.

The village is well known in the Emirates for stories of jinn, and is often described locally as a haunted place, with tales of movement and sound among the empty houses after dark. These narratives are a genuine part of the site's contemporary folklore, rooted in regional belief and the atmosphere of an abandoned town; they are recounted here as cultural tradition, not as verified events.

Beyond the legends, Al Jazira Al Hamra is an unusually intact record of coastal Emirati life before oil, preserving the architecture, layout and craftsmanship of a pearling community. Conservation and interpretation efforts have increasingly framed it as a heritage destination of real historical importance.

Al Jazira Al Hamra is open to the public as a heritage village in Ras Al Khaimah, freely accessible as an open-air site with signage and parking nearby, roughly twenty minutes from the city centre and close to Al Hamra Mall.

Managed as a heritage attraction, it offers expert-led tours that can be booked in advance, and it hosts cultural festivals and events during the cooler season. Visitors should wear sturdy footwear, bring sun protection and water, take care among unstable ruined structures, and treat the buildings and any surviving artefacts with respect.