Using Google satellites, an Emirati sheik makes a name for himself

The sheik’s name seen from space

It’s the oil-sheik equivalent of a boy peeing his name into a snowbank.

Sheik Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, a super-rich member of the Emirati royal family, has had the letters of his name excavated into a desert island he owns near Abu Dhabi.

Visible in Google’s satellite view, each letter is half a kilometer high, and the entire word measures more than 1.5 kilometers from start to finish. When the tide rises in the Persian Gulf, water rushes into the coastal calligraphy to form a salt-water canal.

The Arab sheik, worth more than $21-billion, has a penchant for big ideas. Past projects have included the world’s largest truck, a replica of the classic Dodge Power Wagon at eight times the original size, with four bedrooms in the cab. He’s also had constructed a trailer in the shape of a globe at exactly one-millionth the size of the actual planet.

Other Cyclopean images visible from space — a fingerprint, a running horse and magazine cover

Source: The Globe and Mail