UAE Cities & Areas for Flutter

A Flutter plugin for UAE cities, areas, and locations. Fetch all emirates and their areas from the UAE API with built-in persistent caching—ideal for location pickers, address forms, and region selection in Flutter apps.

Screenshots

Features

  • 🏙️ Fetch UAE cities and emirates with English and Arabic names
  • 📍 Fetch areas and locations for any emirate or city
  • 💾 Persistent storage caching (survives app restarts)
  • 🔄 Force refresh option to bypass cache
  • ⚡ Fast offline support with cached data
  • 🎯 Simple and intuitive API for UAE locations in Flutter

Usage

Use the UAECityAreasPlugin class: call its static methods directly (no object creation).

Basic Usage

import 'package:uae_city_areas/uae_city_areas.dart';

// Fetch cities (no need to create any object)
final cities = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities();

// Fetch areas for a city
final areas = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCityId(cityId);

Force Refresh

final cities = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities(forceRefresh: true);
final areas = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCityId(cityId, forceRefresh: true);

Cache Management

await UAECityAreasPlugin.clearCache();
await UAECityAreasPlugin.clearCitiesCache();
await UAECityAreasPlugin.clearAreasCache(cityId);   // or null to clear all

Error Handling

try {
  final cities = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities();
} on NetworkException catch (e) {
  // Handle network error
} on ApiException catch (e) {
  // Handle API error (e.statusCode, e.message)
} on ParseException catch (e) {
  // Handle parsing error
} on CitiesAreasException catch (e) {
  // Handle other plugin errors
}

Logging

Logging is off by default. Enable it to print plugin actions (API calls, cache hits/misses) to the console:

import 'package:uae_city_areas/uae_city_areas.dart';

void main() {
  UAECityAreasPlugin.loggingEnabled = true;  // Enable plugin logging
  runApp(MyApp());
}

API

UAECityAreasPlugin (static – use this, no object creation)

Call these directly:

  • UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities({bool forceRefresh = false}) - Fetch all cities/emirates
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCityId(int cityId, {bool forceRefresh = false}) - Fetch areas for a city
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCity(City city, {bool forceRefresh = false}) - Fetch areas by City object
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.clearCache() - Clear all cached data
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.clearCitiesCache() - Clear only cities cache
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.clearAreasCache(int? cityId) - Clear areas cache (specific city or all)
  • UAECityAreasPlugin.loggingEnabled - Get or set plugin logging (default: false)

Models

City

class City {
  final int id;           // City/emirate ID
  final String name;      // English name
  final String nameArabic; // Arabic name
}

Area

class Area {
  final int id;          // Area ID
  final String name;     // Area name
  final int emirateId;    // ID of the emirate/city
}

Exceptions

  • CitiesAreasException - Base exception
  • NetworkException - Network/connection errors
  • ApiException - API errors (includes statusCode)
  • ParseException - JSON parsing errors
  • CacheException - Cache operation errors

Caching

The plugin uses persistent storage caching with shared_preferences:

  • Default behavior: Returns cached data if available, otherwise fetches from API
  • Force refresh: Bypasses cache and fetches fresh data
  • TTL support: Optional time-to-live for cache expiration
  • Offline support: Works offline with cached data

Cache persists across app restarts, so subsequent launches are instant.

Example: Get cities and areas for a city

import 'package:uae_city_areas/uae_city_areas.dart';

Future<void> loadCitiesAndAreas() async {
  // 1. Get all cities (emirates)
  final cities = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities();
  if (cities.isEmpty) return;

  // 2. Pick a city (e.g. first one, or by user selection)
  final selectedCity = cities.first;

  // 3. Get areas for that city (by ID or by City object)
  final areas = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCityId(selectedCity.id);
  // Or: final areas = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCity(selectedCity);

  // Use the data
  for (final city in cities) {
    print('${city.name} (${city.nameArabic})');
  }
  for (final area in areas) {
    print('  - ${area.name}');
  }
}

With force refresh (bypass cache):

final cities = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getCities(forceRefresh: true);
final areas = await UAECityAreasPlugin.getAreasByCityId(cityId, forceRefresh: true);

Example app

See the example/ directory for a complete Flutter app with city and area dropdowns.

cd example
flutter pub get
flutter run

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Softasium Systems

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Libraries

uae_city_areas
UAE Cities & Areas for Flutter - A plugin for fetching cities/emirates and areas