We examine the Navier-Stokes equations (NS) on a thin
3
3
-dimensional domain
Ω
ε
=
Q
2
×
(
0
,
ε
)
{\Omega _\varepsilon } = {Q_2} \times (0,\varepsilon )
, where
Q
2
{Q_2}
is a suitable bounded domain in
R
2
{\mathbb {R}^2}
and
ε
\varepsilon
is a small, positive, real parameter. We consider these equations with various homogeneous boundary conditions, especially spatially periodic boundary conditions. We show that there are large sets
R
(
ε
)
\mathcal {R}(\varepsilon )
in
H
1
(
Ω
ε
)
{H^1}({\Omega _\varepsilon })
and
S
(
ε
)
\mathcal {S}(\varepsilon )
in
W
1
,
∞
(
(
0
,
∞
)
,
L
2
(
Ω
ε
)
)
{W^{1,\infty }}((0,\infty ),{L^2}({\Omega _\varepsilon }))
such that if
U
0
∈
R
(
ε
)
{U_0} \in \mathcal {R}(\varepsilon )
and
F
∈
S
(
ε
)
F \in \mathcal {S}(\varepsilon )
, then (NS) has a strong solution
U
(
t
)
U(t)
that remains in
H
1
(
Ω
ε
)
{H^1}({\Omega _\varepsilon })
for all
t
≥
0
t \geq 0
and in
H
2
(
Ω
ε
)
{H^2}({\Omega _\varepsilon })
for all
t
>
0
t > 0
. We show that the set of strong solutions of (NS) has a local attractor
A
ε
{\mathfrak {A}_\varepsilon }
in
H
1
(
Ω
ε
)
{H^1}({\Omega _\varepsilon })
, which is compact in
H
2
(
Ω
ε
)
{H^2}({\Omega _\varepsilon })
. Furthermore, this local attractor
A
ε
{\mathfrak {A}_\varepsilon }
turns out to be the global attractor for all the weak solutions (in the sense of Leray) of (NS). We also show that, under reasonable assumptions,
A
ε
{\mathfrak {A}_\varepsilon }
is upper semicontinuous at
ε
=
0
\varepsilon = 0
.