Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village

Why go

Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village is the old pearling and fishing settlement of Al Jazirah Al Hamra in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, with a fort and watchtowers, a mosque, a souq and courtyard houses built of coral blocks and beach rock. The village's own site says it was founded by the Za'ab tribe in the late 16th century on a tidal island that was joined to the mainland in the late 1970s, and that its people left in the early 1970s; the emirate's Department of Antiquities and Museums gives 1968 to 1971 and says the village is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. The Ras Al Khaimah tourism board's page asks visitors not to climb on or enter the buildings, which may be unstable, and says removing anything from the protected site is prohibited. The village's site offers tours with trained volunteer guides and a village map. This record is the old village, not the modern town of Al Jazirah Al Hamra around it.