
An amazing city is being built in the desert in Kuwait with special tidal gates allowing the sea to come six miles inland and be flushed away.

The baking hot desert on the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia may not sound like the perfect place to build a new city.

But that is the location chosen for Sabah Al Ahmed Sea City, an area the size of Manhattan.

This satellite image shows how a network of inlets which will become Sabah Al Ahmed Sea City (right) has emerged from a salt marsh (left)

Oil prices may have fallen through the floor since last year but Kuwait remains a very wealthy nation.

But rulers know the oil will one day run out and are encouraging projects which will give the country a post-oil future.

Sea City is named after Sabah Al Ahmad, the 86-year-old emir of Kuwait, who came to power in 2006.

The new 'sea city' is a vast engineering undertaking which has cost billions of dollars. Huge channels have been dug to bring the sea inland

He is also backing an even more ambitious project, the Madinat al-Hareer, or Silk City, which is proposed on Bubiyan island near the Iraqi border.

That project cannot go ahead until a huge causeway is built across Kuwait Bay. Construction is under way but it will be years before that vision is realised.

But the infrastructure for Sea City is already built and plans are going ahead for it to become a metropolis of 250,000 people within a few years.

A key element of the project is a yachting marina and retail centre for the super-rich (pictured)

The project was inspired by the late Khalid Yousef Al Marzouq, a wealthy Kuwaiti property developer who funded it entirely through his La'ala company.

It is now being brought to fruition by his son Fawaz Al Marzouq.

Ian Williams, La'ala's project director, told Mail Online he could not give a cost for the whole project but admitted it was 'multi billion dollar'.

The city is being developed on the site of a former salt marsh, close to the Saudi border. Work on an even more ambitious project on Bubiyan island, near the Iraqi border, has yet to start. A huge causeway will link it to Kuwait City, across the bay

Fawaz Al Marzouq said: 'The project was conceived in the mid-1980s but did not start on site until 2003.'

The first delay was the small matter of the first Gulf War. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq in 1990 and sought to make it the '19th province' of Iraq.

Iraqi troops even crossed the border into Saudi Arabia and fought the battle of Khalafji with US, Saudi and Qatari forces.

Fawaz Al Marzouq (left) named the city after Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad (right), the emir of Kuwait

Eventually Saddam's army was kicked out of Kuwait but it took a decade for the emirate to recover from the trauma of invasion.

By 2003 work could finally begin on the project.

One of the most extraordinary elements of the project is the way the sea has been brought almost six miles (9km) inland from the Persian Gulf.

This has created 124 miles (200km) of tidal shoreline, marine environments and beaches.

Prior to the building work it was a desolate salt marsh, called Sabkha.

The patchwork of roads and inlets are plucked out at night by a network of 13,000 streetlights. Much of the concreting work had to be done at night to avoid the extreme temperatures of day time

Drained and cleared of silt, it was then dug and compacted.

The whole project has involved 2,500 workers from 20 countries working flat out in sometimes unbearable heat. The majority come from India.

Mr Williams said: 'In the heat of the summer (June-October) work is stopped between 11am to 4pm.

The new city (pictured) is only a few miles from the border with Saudi Arabia and many of the residents are experted to be commuters working in the oil town of Khafji

'While temperatures may reach over 50C, workers are not exposed to extremely harsh conditions.'

Millions of tonnes of sand was moved by 29 bulldozers, 70 excavators and 113 giant dump trucks.

The sand was used to build up the city so it could cope with rising sea levels no matter how dire the global warming predictions.

The entire area was formerly a non-descript salt marsh and it took years of excavation and drainage work to convert it into a habitable environment

Consultant engineers Buro Happold designed a tidal gate system which was model tested at the Danish Hydraulic Institute in Copenhagen.

The gates were fabricated and installed by a British company based in Cardiff.

Soil experts are on hand to help nurture new mangrove seeds so they can withstand high water salinity.

The city has been laid with 745 miles (1,200km) of cable and enough asphalt to cover 703 football pitches. A special type of asphalt, with a high level of bitumen, has to be used or the roads would melt in the heat

Plants, mangroves and specially designed coral nursery gardens will bring life back into the area and surrounding sea.

The city will be supplied with desalinated water from 17 iconic concrete water towers.

Power stations and digital telecommunication exchanges will provide electricity and broadband to every house.

A unique system of tidal gates have been used to convert the two natural tidal creeks into 180 kilometres of natural beachfront development space, complete with a 'naturally flushing waterside habitat'

But who will live there?

Mr Williams explained: 'The oil refining, other oil-related industries and heavy industrial facilities are to the south of Kuwait City.

'With the traffic congestion in the city people will be attracted to make Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City their primary residence. There is clear evidence of this happening already.'

Billions of dollars have been invested into the project but it is a blank canvas and whether it succeeds as a community depends on the residents, and of course the strength of the Kuwaiti economy

The workers have laid 745 miles (1,200km) of cable, 13,000 streetlights and enough asphalt to cover 703 football pitches.

Mr Williams said: 'The high temperatures do cause us big problems with concreting, all of this is carried out at night during the summer and chilled water and ice has to be added to lower the temperatures to acceptable levels.'

He said the whole project is 'ecologically sustainable'.

A modern-day Venice has arisen in the desert but whether it succeeds in the future or returns to the desert is up to the residents.

Fawaz Al Marzouq said: 'We have master planned this project so that it works with the nature, we have embraced its requirements and it has paid off, with a thriving marine eco-system.’

Mr Williams said: 'We have not tried to construct a dream around an iconic shape or symbol, as elsewhere in the region, we have used sound engineering and science to deliver a urban development that will stand the test of time.'

The city is currently largely uninhabited. But the designers envisage 250,000 residents, many of whom will have their main homes in Kuwait City

Development will take place in 10 phases and over 25 years, so do not expect Sea City (pictured) to fill up overnight

Wish you were here - A picture postcard from Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City

The area has been carved out of the desert. Temperatures during the Kuwaiti summer can often reach 50 degrees Celsius