Old Town, Umm Al Quwain peninsula · Umm Al Quwain

Umm Al Quwain Old Town & Fort

The old quarter on the tip of the Umm Al Quwain peninsula: an eighteenth-century fort now holding the emirate's museum, a line of restored coral-stone watchtowers along the shore, the old souk, and streets that look very much as they did forty years ago.

Why go

Eighteenth-century fort, now the emirate's museum
Finds from Ed-Dur, a major pre-Islamic Gulf trading site
Restored coral-stone watchtowers along the shore
An old quarter that was never redeveloped

The fort and the museum

Built in the eighteenth century as the ruler's residence and the town's defence, the fort sits at the head of the old quarter with two round towers and a square keep. It became the emirate's museum in 2000 and holds archaeological material from Ed-Dur, one of the most significant pre-Islamic sites in the Gulf, a few kilometres down the coast.

Ed-Dur itself — a trading settlement occupied around the first century CE, with a temple to the sun god Shams — can be visited, though there is little interpretation on site and it takes some finding.

Walking the old town

The streets behind the fort still carry coral-block houses, the old souk buildings and a row of watchtowers facing the creek. It is not a restored heritage district in the Al Fahidi sense — parts are lived in, parts are derelict — and that mixture is what makes it worth an hour.

Umm Al Quwain Old Town & Fort, answered

Is Umm Al Quwain worth visiting?

For a half-day, yes — the mangroves for kayaking and the old town for a fort, a museum and streets that have not been rebuilt. It is the emirate that has changed least, which is the whole appeal.