The Louvre Abu Dhabi has been conceived as a "museum city" or Arabic "medina." It will be the first Arabic museum of a universal vocation, located in the Saadiyat Cultural District, conceived as a bridge to the future with the purpose of linking knowledge and civilizations. Designed as a global art history handbook across the museum's collections, the Guide takes the reader on a cross-cultural journey through the entire museum, gallery by gallery. The museum is a place of dialogue between cultures and civilizations and offers a transversal vision of art history, with art from the first villages to the first great powers, from civilizations and empires to universal religions, from Asian trade routes to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, from cosmographies to modern art.