AJMAN

Ajman (Arabic: 'Agman), also spelt Ujman, is one of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With an area of just 260 square kilometres, Ajman is the smallest emirate by area. Its seat of government is Ajman, which is bordered on its north, south, and east by Sharjah.
Located along the Persian Gulf, Ajman also controls Masfut and Manama, two small, inland enclaves that are primarily agricultural. Approximately 95% of the population of the emirate resides in the city of Ajman. The population was only 36,000 in 1980 but grew considerably in recent years, due to an influx of people from the neighboring emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, and other countries. Ajman has experienced massive development and a construction boom in recent years.
On 8 January 1820, His Highness Sheikh Rashid ibn Humayd Al Nuaimi signed the General Maritime Treaty with Britain, accepting a protectorate to keep the Ottoman Turks out. Like four of Ajman's neighbors, Sharjah, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah and Umm al-Qaiwain, its position on the route to India made it important enough to be recognized as a salute state (albeit of the lowest class: 3 guns).
On 2 December 1971, His Highness Sheikh Rashid ibn Humayd Al Nuaimi joined the United Arab Emirates.
After the success of freehold property in Dubai, Ajman was the second emirate to offer freehold property. Ajman is currently the only emirate in the UAE offering investors of any nationality fully transparent true 100% freehold ownership on real estate, which in turn has attracted a huge number of investors (local and international) to this emirate. This in turn has prompted the Ajman government to initiate a number of development projects. New Ajman was the name given to the area being developed outside of the current Ajman city, located by the Emirates Road. New Ajman was supposed to consist of many new developments and projects envisioned by Chief of Municipality Sheikh Rashid Al Nuaimi.
One of the first developments of New Ajman is called "The Emirates City", a brand new city located directly on the Emirates Road to be built from scratch and consisting of more than 100 mid- and high-rise buildings. A number of shopping malls, hotels and residential villas were also planned to eventually extend all the way to the 'Al Zoura' area, where beach-side developments were planned. Almost none of these projects ever got started. Investors from all over the world lost millions of dollars. The government, due to its totalitarian character, never was held responsible for any damage done to these investors.
Unlike Dubai's investors, most Ajman investors come from the middle class of India, Pakistan or Iran. The apparent promise of a residence visa with the purchase of a home induced them to spend their life's savings on one of these off plan flats. In 2008 the central government of the UAE brought these hopes to an end by clarifying that no residence visas would be issued to property investors. With this announcement for a lot of these investors their investment dramatically lost value. This coupled with the global financial crisis and the rising doubts that Ajman will ever be able to provide these developments with water and power brought off plan property transactions to near zero.
In 2010 only Ajman Uptown and Emirates City have come out of the ground. The billboards along Emirates Road have been removed; Emirates City became a ghost town before it ever got completed.