X Range, a huge private island used for weapons testing in the United Arab Emirates

In the world there are some large areas that are off-limits to the public and reserved for weapons testing.

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One of those locations is X Range, an island located off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Originally called Abu Al Abyad, this island is situated off the southwest coast of Abu Dhabi, about 70 km from the city. In 2024, European Defence Review noted that the island was identified in late 2022 by an Emirati company, Remaya, as the ideal location for a weapons testing range.

Before being used as a weapons testing range, a ferry was needed to visit it, but Remaya built a bridge to facilitate access. Today, this site is used by Edge Group, an Emirati advanced technology and defense consortium, to test all kinds of weapons systems, providing a communications network to monitor the results.

On the official X Range website, Edge Group explains that the island em>"brings flexible, multi-domain Training, Test and Evaluation (TT&E) capabilities to the heart of the Middle East. Commercial and military customers can conduct complex, air, ground and maritime trials in a secure, instrumented and ultimately, safe environment." This island "has the ability to cater for a wide range of platforms and systems, such as unmanned air, ground and maritime platforms, through to testing mission critical sensors and Electronic Warfare systems as well as conventional munitions."

Edge Group notes that X Range "is located on a highly secure, access controlled island approximately 8km offshore. It is 35km by 15km, enabling a land danger area of 355km2, inclusive of a 3.8-kmlong, 60-metre-wide ICAO standard runway and a smaller 1.2KM long runway."

In addition to the island's surface area and coastline, X Range has airspace authorization up to 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), extendable to 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) for aircraft testing. The island is surrounded by a 50 km² maritime safety zone, so its coastline also allows for testing of marine systems in shallow waters.

In February 2025, Edge Group released a video showcasing the island's facilities for various phases of weapons testing:

Last Saturday,Sam Eckholm published an interesting report visiting the island, invited by Edge Group. The video shows various test sites on the island and some of its communication systems:

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Main image: Google Earth.