Comments: True. Ski Dubai, the world's largest indoor ski resort — boasting Alpine chalets, 400-meter ski runs, and 6,000 tons of artificial snow — opened for business in late 2005 (view more images here).

Ski Dubai is actually one of the more modest in a series of extraordinarily ambitious commercial projects undertaken by the Gulf state of Dubai, including the world's tallest building, the world's first underwater luxury hotel, and, believe it or not, an archipelago of man-made islands shaped like a map of the world.

No wonder Michael Jackson moved there.

Not content with merely topping the rest of the world, Dubai will actually best its own record in 2008, if all goes well, with the opening of the new world's largest indoor ski resort, the 15 million-square-foot Sunny Mountain Ski Dome.

Sources and further reading:

Ski Dubai
Official home page of Ski Dubai, "the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East"

Dubai Opens Ski Resort
The Guardian, 3 December 2005

Dubai's Faux Ski Mountain Will Offer Snow in 120-Degree Heat
Associated Press, 7 April 2005

Excess All Areas
The Observer, 13 March 2005

Oil Producers Enjoy Boom as Prices and Profits Soar
Cox News Services, 28 March 2005

Last updated: 02/02/06