Gulf states have spent billions to build cities in the sea

the site of Bahrain’s land-registration bureau was not on land. Like a good bit of the country, it has been reclaimed from the sea. Bahrain’s eagerness for such projects is easy to understand: its natural land area is just 665 square kilometres (257 square miles), over half the size of Greater London. The south is mostly desert, good for oilfields, military bases and little else.Since the 1960s Bahrain has added more than 11% to its land area through reclamation, says Mohammed Al Khalifa, the head of the property regulator. It may soon add much more. Last year Bahrain said it would build five new cities on reclaimed land. “We’re surrounded by shallow waters, so it doesn’t take much to do reclamation—it’s like a bathtub.”