Commemoration Day was instituted in 2015 to honour Emiratis who have died in military and civil service. The flag flies at half-mast, a minute of silence is observed at 11:30, and the official ceremony is held at Wahat Al Karama, the memorial opposite the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
At sunset the flag is raised again and the country moves into National Day.
No attendance figure applies.
The sequence is the thing a visitor should know: 1 December is a day of national mourning with a formal tone, and the celebration begins the following morning. Arriving on the wrong day and expecting fireworks is a mistake a calendar that lists only National Day will produce.
PlanningFixed on 1 December, directly before National Day — a day of mourning attached to a day of celebration.
Dates
computed from the rule
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.