Al-Ittihad was launched as a 12-page weekly publication with a distribution of 5,500 copies. It was distributed free local newspaper to stand in the face of competition from newspapers, mainly from other Arab countries. The first issue of Al Ittihad appeared on 20 October 1969. The publisher is Al Ittihad Press and Publishing Corporation which also publishes English daily the National. With the proclamation of the UAE in 1971 published "The Union" for several consecutive days and were issued on a daily basis for two weeks on 9 August 1971 and that on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan came to power in Abu Dhabi. On 22 April 1972 the Union began chests daily newspaper today published a buoyant mood sophisticated includes 32 pages including several pages of color. At a later stage, was an extension of the Sports Federation consisting of 16 pages followed by the extension "minimum Union," a daily magazine, artistic and cultural variety of 16 pages as well. And records of Al Ittihad newspaper used for technology transfer press materials by satellitefor the first time in the Arab countries in 1981 when he established a printing press again in Dubai to print the newspaper in Abu Dhabi and Dubai at the same time, to overcome the problems of delay in the distribution in the Northern Emirates. Today, the Union has one of the latest printing presses in the Middle East and it affects the quality of the print quality comparable to foreign newspapers. Works in the Union today, nearly percent distributed between the press and offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and other emirates, as well as distributed offices in Beirut and Cairo and correspondents around the world. And journalists in their work supports the latest technologies in the newsroom equipped with devices and the latest techniques of editing, has adopted the "Union" recent program "Rapid Browser" to receive your news and news agencies, edit, and follow-up until it reaches the stage of printing. The paper entered the world of the Internet, starting on 15 March 1996 to provide a new service to its readers to be the first local newspaper offering the service. The estimated circulation of the daily in 2003 was 58,000 copies, making it the second after Al Khaleej in the country. Its 2006 circulation was 94,275 copies, while it was 76,000 in 2008. The Ipsos data in 2009 showed that the paper had a readership of 59.3%. The paper's online version was the 24th most visited website for 2010 in the MENA region. The circulation of the daily during the first half of 2013 was 109,640 copies.
