Master developer Nakheel today announced that reclamation work for ‘The World’ has been completed. The dredging began in 2004. The islands will shortly be handed over to the individual developers who will then begin construction of their projects.

Here’s how it looked from space back in April 2007:

Four kilometres off the coast of Dubai it’s a huge development, 9km x 6 km, and consists of 300 individual islands behind a breakwater that is 27 km long. Nakheel say that it adds 232 kilometres of new coastline – prime beachfron real estate.