Middle East
Sharjah studies levelling a mountain summit to build homes above Khor Fakkan
By Staff Writer | 13 August 2026
The Ruler of Sharjah has said planning for a new administrative division of Khor Fakkan is finished and will be published shortly, and that the emirate is examining a residential area on top of Al Aween Mountain.
Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, set out both points in a telephone interview on a broadcast programme on 11 August 2026. The administrative division has been drawn up on the same basis as the one already published for Kalba, and he said the Khor Fakkan version has not yet been released.
Khor Fakkan sits on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, enclosed by the Hajar Mountains on three sides and the Gulf of Oman on the fourth. The Ruler described the city as running from Al Hawami to the mountains and out to the sea, north and south, ending at Al Aqaba by the entrance to Al Luluyah, and said each of those areas is a neighbourhood of Khor Fakkan rather than a suburb of it.
The constraint driving the study is simple: in the Al Aween area there is no flat ground left to build on.
Building upwards by taking the top off
The Ruler said the area would be reorganised into two suburbs, and that with no remaining space the emirate is now looking at going up into the mountains. Al Aween Mountain extends from Victoria School to Al Ghazir and takes in the Al Ashqar neighbourhood, whose name he explained describes a type of mountain with light brown soil rather than a colour.
Since the largest mountain in this area is Al Aween Mountain, which dominates all the surrounding areas, we are now studying the levelling of the summit of this mountain and the construction of a residential area on top of it, as this would provide a large area capable of accommodating a large number of people.
Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah
No contractor, consultant, budget, programme or unit count has been announced. What has been said is that the work is at study stage, and that the administrative division which would frame it is complete and awaiting publication.
Naming as part of the plan
A second theme ran through the same interview, and it is a planning decision rather than a decorative one. The Ruler said places should carry names that stand for something good, and gave two worked examples.
Al Subaihiya was named after an old spot at that location which had been encroached on by parts of Al Luluyah and Al Zubarah. To restore it, the name was given to a suburb taking in Al Nakheel, Al Luluyah, Al Zubarah and Hasi. On the opposite side lies Al Haray, where snakes are found, and he asked whether a suburb could reasonably be named after them when its residents would pass that name to their children.
For anyone working on the east coast, the practical signal is the sequence. The administrative division comes first and is finished. The mountain scheme is a study behind it. Nothing about the second has been committed, and the first is the document that will tell contractors where the boundaries actually fall.