UAE dirham to celebrate 44 years

As the UAE dirham completes its 44th year on May 19, the currency celebrates its unified form representing the seven emirates after undergoing several transformations. The 1973 born banknotes began their journey in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100, displaying the watermark of an Arabian horse - which was later changed to falcon, the national bird of UAE. The date also marks the formation of United Arab Emirates Currency Board which issued the new notes bearing various local environmental landmarks and geographical boundaries of the UAE.

"The very first denominations were imprinted with landmarks that represented each emirate separately with the name of emirate on the bank note," said Ram Kumar, Founder of Numisbing, a Dubai-based numismatics company, and President of International Bank Note Society, Dubai Chapter, "For example, Dh1 carried the picture of the Clock Tower and Police Fort in Sharjah, while 5 dirham note had Fujairah's Old Fort on it. The 10 dirham note showed an aerial view of Umm Al Quwain and the 50 dirham note displayed the palace of Ruler of Ajman. The Dh 100 was imprinted with a picture of Al Rams area in Ras Al Khaimah. Representations from Dubai and Abu Dhabi were introduced with 1000 dirham notes in 1976, which featured Al Jahilie Fort of Abu Dhabi and an old fort of Dubai."

Prior to the introduction of UAE dirham, the region used several currencies including the Indian rupee, the Gulf rupee, the Qatari riyal, Dubai riyal and Bahraini dinar (used in Abu Dhabi) during different phases.