How Big Is Hudayriyat Island?

The official number

According to Modon Properties' own masterplan announcement, Hudayriyat Island spans more than 51 million square metres, roughly 51 square kilometres, or about 5,100 hectares. Modon states this is equivalent to 53.8% of Abu Dhabi Island itself, meaning the development adds an area to the city that's more than half the size of the existing island capital. This figure comes directly from Modon's official release and has been repeated consistently by outlets including Zawya and the Abu Dhabi Media Office.

What that looks like in practice

Numbers on their own are hard to picture, so here's the scale in more familiar terms:

• 51 square kilometres is larger than the land area of Manhattan (about 59 square kilometres including water, roughly 39 square kilometres of land alone), meaning Hudayriyat's footprint is comparable to, and by some measures larger than, the borough most people think of as an entire city.
• It's more than 24 times the size of Monaco, which covers roughly 2.1 square kilometres.
• Alongside the landmass, the masterplan adds 53.5 kilometres of new coastline to Abu Dhabi, including 16 kilometres of beaches, an amount of shoreline most cities never gain in a single project.

Where the size comes from

Hudayriyat isn't flat reclaimed land end to end. The masterplan includes two engineered hill communities, reported at 45 to 50 metres in height in Modon's official release, built specifically to give residences panoramic views over the Gulf and the Abu Dhabi skyline. Around 60% of the island's footprint is allocated to parks, open space, and natural or landscaped terrain rather than built structures, including what Modon describes as one of the largest urban parks in the emirate, spanning more than 2.25 million square metres on its own.

Why the scale matters for buyers and residents

Size alone doesn't make a location valuable, but it does explain a few things about how Hudayriyat is being positioned. A single-developer island this large has room to sequence entire communities, Bashayer, Al Naseem, Nawayef, Wadeem, Hudayriyat Golf Estates, without running out of land or having to compromise density to fit everything in. It also means the sports and lifestyle infrastructure, Surf Abu Dhabi, the Velodrome, cycling and running tracks, the urban park, isn't squeezed in around the residential product. There's enough space for both to exist at a genuinely low-density standard, which is part of what distinguishes Hudayriyat from more compact island developments elsewhere in the UAE.

If you're comparing Hudayriyat's scale and community layout against other Abu Dhabi or Dubai developments, get in touch for a private consultation.