Muscat may be a modern city, where expatriates often find work, yet it remains strikingly different from its Gulf neighbours. More than half of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Oman capital are foreigners, drawn by an economy that blends oil production with service industries.
Despite the trappings of modernity—luxury hotels, sleek cars, fashionable boutiques and elegant perfumeries—one feature is conspicuously absent: Skyscrapers, unlike peers such as Dubai, Doha or Riyadh.
