Population of the UAE is treated in this encyclopedia through published, attributable figures rather than assertion. The United Arab Emirates publishes statistics through federal bodies, principally the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre, and through emirate-level authorities.
What the figures show
The federation's economy is large relative to its citizen population and unusually open: trade, logistics, financial services, tourism, aviation and manufacturing sit alongside hydrocarbon production. Because the resident population is mostly non-national, per-capita figures need care — they describe output divided by residents, not by citizens.
How to read a number here
Every statistic in this encyclopedia carries the year or period it describes and the body that published it. Where a figure is a projection, an estimate or a range, the article says so. Rounded totals are labelled as rounded. This is deliberate: an unsourced number in an encyclopedia is indistinguishable from a guess, and a number without a date is worse, because it silently becomes false.
Institutions
Federal statistical work is carried out by the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre; central-bank and monetary data come from the Central Bank of the UAE; emirate-level figures come from bodies such as the Dubai Statistics Center and the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism for tourism data. Trade and investment policy is administered federally and through the individual emirates' free zones.