Doha ( , or ) is the
capital city of the state of Qatar
.
Located on
the Persian
Gulf
, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008,, and is
also one of the municipalities
of Qatar. Doha is Qatar's largest city, with over 80% of
the nation's population residing in Doha or its surrounding
suburbs, and is also the economic center of
the country.
Doha also serves as the seat of government of Qatar, which is ruled
by
Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa Al Thani.
Doha is home to the Education City
, an area devoted to research and education.
Doha was the site of the first ministerial-level meeting of the
Doha Development Round of
World Trade Organization
negotiations.
The city of Doha also held the 2006 Asian
Games
, which was the largest Asian
Games ever held.
History
The Emiri Diwan.
1825, the city of Doha was founded under the name
Al-Bida. The name "Doha" came from the
Arabic ad-dawha, "the big tree." The
reference is to a prominent tree that must have stood at the site
where the original fishing village arose, on the eastern coast of
the Qatar peninsula.it might have been derived from "dohat" ,Arabic
for bay or gulf,referring to the doha bay area surrounding
corniche.
In 1825, during the war between Qatar and
Bahrain
, Doha had been severely damaged and Abu Dhabi was
helping Bahrain. The following year, the Ottomons made
Sheikh Thani bin Muhammed the
Hakim of Doha, and he ultimately became Hakim of
Qatar. In 1882, al Rayyan built the
Al
Wajbah fortress, in southwestern Doha. The following year,
Sheikh Qassim led a Qatari army to
victory against the
Ottomans.
The city
was made capital of the British
protectorate of Qatar in 1916, and when the
nation gained independence in 1971, Doha remained the capital of
Qatar. The British placed the Al Thani family in control as
they were traditionally the administrators and clerks of the city,
much to the distaste of another prominent family; the Al Kawaris.
Based in Al Wakra, Al Kawari claimed to be descendant the "first
son" of Muhammed, and rightful rulers. This claim was backed up by
the fact that "Thani" of course is derived from the Arabic word for
two, "Ethnain", and as a result they were more entitled to the
throne than the Al Thani family. However such a claim has never
been proven.
In 1917, the
Al Kout fortress, which is
located in the center of the city, was built by
Sheikh Abdulla Bin Qassim
Al-Thani. Still, during the early 20th century, much of Qatar's
economy depended on fishing and pearling, and Doha had about 350
pearling boats. However, after the introduction of the Japanese
cultured pearls in the 1930s, the whole region, including the town
of Doha, suffered a major depression and Qatar became a poor
country, plunged into poverty. This lasted until in the late 1930s,
when
oil was discovered. However, the
exploration and exportation was halted due to the second world war.
Today the nation as a whole produces over 800,000 barrels of oil
daily. In 1969, the
Government
House opened. Today it is considered to be Qatar's most
prominent landmark.
In 1973
the University of Qatar opened,
and in 1975 the Qatar National Museum
opened in what was originally the ruler's palace in
1912. The
Al Jazeera Arabic satellite
television news channel began broadcasting in 1996, with
headquarters and broadcast center in Doha.
Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani
currently rules in what some consider to be Qatar's most beautiful
city.
Climate
Doha features an
arid climate. It is
situated in the
Arabian Peninsula,
and as such its climate is very hot. Temperatures average over 40
degrees
Celsius (104 °
F) from May to September, and humidity is
variable. Dewpoints can reach above 25 degrees Celsius in the
summer. During the summer months, the city averages almost no
precipitation, and less than an inch (25 mm) during other
months. Rainfall is scarce (average 70 mm per year), falling
on isolated days mostly between October to March. During cool
winter nights the temperature can rarely drop below 7 degrees
Celsius.
Demographics
The
demography of Doha is unusual in that the majority of residents are
expatriates, with Qatari
nationals
forming a minority. The largest portion of expatriates in Qatar
are from South Asian countries, mainly
Pakistan
, India
, Srilanka
, Nepal
, Philippines
, Bangladesh
and Indonesia
, with large amounts of expatriates also coming from
the Levant Arab
countries, North Africa, and East Asia. Doha is also home to expatriates from the
United
States
, Canada
, France
, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Australia as well as many other countries from
all over the world.
In the
past, expatriates in Qatar were not allowed to own land; however,
now people who are not Qatari citizens can buy land in several
areas of Doha, including the West Bay
Lagoon, the Qatar
Pearl
and the new Lusail City
. Ownership by foreigners in Qatar entitles
them to a renewable residency permit, which allows them to live and
work in Qatar.
Each month tens of thousands
emigrate to
Qatar, and as a result, Doha has witnessed explosive growth rates
in
population. Doha's population
currently stands at around one million , with the population of the
city more than doubling in the past decade. Due to the high influx
of expatriates, the Qatari housing market saw a shortage of supply
which led to a rise in prices and increased
inflation. The gap in the housing market between
supply and demand has narrowed however, and property prices have
fallen in some areas following a period which saw rents triple in
some areas .
Several
churches have recently been
constructed in Doha following decrees by the
Emir for the allocation of land to churches. In March
2008, the first Catholic Church in Doha, Our Lady of the Rosary,
was opened. As a sign of respect to the local population Christian
symbols are not displayed on the outside of the building. Today,
several churches exist in Doha, including the Malankara Orthodox
Church, Marthomite Church, CSI Church, Syro-Malankara Church and
the Pentecostal Church.
| Year |
Population |
Metro |
| 1986 |
217,294 |
|
| 1992 |
313,639 |
|
| 2001 |
299,300 |
|
| 2004 |
339,847 |
612,707 |
| 2005 |
400,051 |
|
| 2008 |
|
998,651 |
Districts
The following is a list of some of Doha's more prominent
districts:
Economy
of Qatar's oil and natural gas wealth is visible in Doha, which is
the economic centre of Qatar. Doha is home to the headquarters of
the country's largest oil and gas companies, including
Qatar Petroleum,
Qatargas and
RasGas. Doha's
economy is built on the revenue the country has made from its
oil and
natural gas
industries, and the Qatari government is rapidly trying to
diversify the Qatari economy in order to move away from this
dependence on oil. As a result, Doha is currently experiencing a
very large boom, with the city developing very rapidly - this is
mostly the result of Sheikh
Hamad bin
Khalifa's modernization program.
Like the
nearby city of Dubai
in the
United Arab
Emirates
, Doha's economy is moving away from its dependency
on the oil and natural
gas industries, although unlike Dubai, Doha's main focus is not
tourism. Doha is seeing huge amounts of growth, with the
population of the city increasing by more than 60,000 between 2004
and 2006; this has caused a boom in the real estate sector, with
real estate prices skyrocketing . According to the
BBC, as of late January 2007, Doha is now a more
expensive city than Dubai in terms of real estate prices.
This rate
of growth has led to projects such as the Lusail City project, which is being constructed north of Doha
and will eventually house 200,000 people. Construction is
also booming in Doha, a result of increasing corporate and
commercial activity in Doha.
This is most visible with the changing
skyline of the city, as Doha has over 50 towers currently being
constructed, the largest of which is the Dubai
Towers
. At the same time, 39 new hotels are joining
Qatar's booming tourism market, adding about 9,000 new
rooms by 2009.
Qatar Airways is headquartered in the
Qatar Airways Tower in Doha.
Some key projects in Doha include:
Transportation
Corniche Street
By air,
Doha is currently served by the Doha
International Airport
, Qatar's only international airport. The
airport is the hub of
Qatar Airways, a
leading regional airline that has recently witnessed a huge
expansion. The current airport's facilities have been expanded
numerous times in the last decade, but because of the airport's
proximity to the city, space for expansion is limited.
As a result, a new
airport, the New Doha International
Airport
, is being constructed east of the current
airport. The new airport is expected to have a final
capacity of 50 million passengers upon completion of its final
phase in 2015, and the airport is expected to solve all of the
problems currently faced by the current airport. The new airport,
at more than 2,000 hectares, will be one of the largest in the
world.
Doha has an excellent road network which is currently undergoing
vast upgrades, including the construction of many highways. The
largest such highway under construction is the Doha expressway.
Doha has an extensive
bus system operated by the
Mowasalat company, which also operates
taxis
under its Karwa brand. The main mode of transport in Doha, however,
is the
car, as the bus system is mostly
used by the lower-income groups of the country, and there is no
metro system operating in the city,
although there are plans for the construction of such a
system.
The
Doha Port is among the country's
largest ports, and is located just off the
Doha Corniche. The port is the main seaport
servicing Doha, although plans for a new port are underway due to
the port's location in central Doha and the resultant traffic and
pollution problems, the proposed location of the port is near the
town of
Al Wakra, just south of the New
Doha airport.
Education
Education has been a major focus of the Qatari government in recent
years.
In
addition to Qatar University,
established in 1973, the government has solicited other
universities to establish campuses in Doha, most notably at
Education
City.
Education City is one of the main project of the non-profit
organization Qatar Foundation for
Education, Science and Community Development. It has also
launched the
World
Innovation Summit for Education - WISE - a global forum that
brings together education stakeholders, opinion leaders and
decision makers from all over the world to discuss educational
issues.
The first edition will be held in Doha,
Qatar from November 16th to 18th
2009.
A key player in the educational field in Qatar is the Supreme
Council of Communication and Information Technology
ictQATAR. Through its e-education program,
ictQATAR is bringing together the power of
education and ICT in Qatar.
Doha is also home to many international schools established for its
expatriate communities, with dozens of different private schools
currently operating in the city, such as
Qatar Academy,
Qatar International School,
The American School of
Doha,
Doha College,
DeBakey High
School for Health Professions at Qatar, The
Qatar Canadian School,
Philippine School Doha,
Bangladesh
M.H.M High School & College, Doha-Qatar and The
MES Indian School.
Universities/colleges within
Education
City: (See Education City)
Other Universities/colleges around Doha:
Sports
Doha is
home to a number of sports stadiums, many of which were renovated
in preparation for the 15th Asian Games, held in December 2006, which Doha spent $2.8
billion for preparation. Doha also hosted the
3rd West Asian Games in December 2005. Doha
is also expected to host the
2011 Asian Indoor Games; Doha will
also host the finals for the
2011 AFC
Asian Cup. Qatar is aiming to be the region's sports
capital.Doha's major football club are Doha Red Feet - who play at
the 22,000 capacity Grand Marha Stadium. They are managed by ex
Everton player Roger Kenyon.
Sports venues in Doha and its suburbs include:
ASPIRE
Academy
, launched in 2004, is a sports academy which aims
to create world-class athletes. It is situated in the
Doha Sports
City
Complex, which also includes the Khalifa
International Stadium, the Hamad Aquatic Centre and the Aspire Tower
.
The
MotoGP motorcycling grand prix of Doha is
held annually at Losail International Circuit
, located just north of the city.
Under-construction stadiums/sport facilities:
The Wall
Stadium would become the world's largest underground stadium,
dwarfing the Fjellhallen
ice-hockey arena in Norway, and would be the main
venue for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. The stadium is estimated
to cost 20 million dollars. The stadium will have the latest
technology and roads leading to the stadium will be easy. While the
New Paralympic stadium south of the new City of Lusail will be the
most advance Paralympic stadium.
In 2001 Qatar also became the first country in the Middle East to
hold a women’s tennis tournament: Qatar holds both the Qatar Open
for Women and the ladies ITF tournament. Since 2008 and at least
for 3 years, the
Sony
Ericsson Championships (equivalent to the ATP's season-ending
Championships) takes place in Doha, in the Khalifa International
Tennis Complex, and features record prize money of $4.45 million
(check of $1,485,000 for the winner, which represents the largest
single guaranteed payout in women's tennis today ).
Doha submitted a bid for the
2016
Olympics. It already had more than 70% of the venues ready that
were used during the
Asian Games in
2006. If Doha had won, an olympic village would have been
constructed and would have had the shape of a dove and been 67
hectares in size with a capacity of 18,000 people, housing
officials, athletes and coaches.
(See Doha 2016 Olympic bid) On June 4,
2008, the city was eliminated from the shortlist for the 2016
Olympic Games.
In November 2009, Doha will host the
The Oryx
Cup World Championship. This is a hydroplane boat race in the
H1 Unlimited season.
The race will take
place in Doha Bay on the Persian Gulf . The H1 Unlimited and the Qatar Marine
Sports Federation (QMSF) agreed to have the final race of the 2009
H1 Unlimited unlimited hydroplane season in Doha. Ten of the
fastest racing boats in the world will travel to Doha November 2009
for the inaugural
Oryx Cup event—the H1
Unlimited World Championship—as a result of an Agreement in
Principal reached January 9 between the ABRA and the QMSF.
In May 2009, Qatar placed a bid for the
2022 FIFA World Cup, seeking to bring
the event to the region for the first time. As a result of Qatar's
harsh summers and the small population of the country, the bid
contains several unique elements which are unprecedented in World
Cup history. The bid proposes that all stadiums constructed to host
the World Cup would be built as
air
conditioned indoor venues should Qatar win the bid, in order to
ensure that the event can be held in summer. Furthermore, the bid
proposes that all venues would be located within Doha, as Qatar's
other cities and towns are too small to be capable of handling the
influx of people which accompanies the World Cup.
Twin towns
See also
References
External links
- Main venue for the 2006 Asian Games.
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