Qatar

Qatar is a small peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf from the coast of Arabia. It is tiny but influential: thanks to huge reserves of natural gas, among the largest in the world, it is one of the richest states on Earth per person. About three million people live there, but Qatari citizens are a small minority among a vast population of expatriates from all over the world. From its skyscraper capital, Doha, the country has risen within a generation to the forefront of the international stage.

Qatar is a low, flat, desert peninsula, windswept and scorching hot. Its landscapes are those of the Gulf desert: dunes, stony plains and, in the south, Khor al-Adaid, the "Inland Sea", where dunes run straight into an arm of the sea, a rare sight in the region. The long, indented coast was the domain of the pearl divers; it is along the Gulf that life, the ports and the capital are concentrated. Fresh water comes almost entirely from desalinated seawater.

Long home to tribes of fishermen, pearl divers and sailors, the peninsula lived from the sea and trade; from the 19th century it came under the Al Thani dynasty, which still rules, and in 1916 became a British protectorate. Like its neighbours, Qatar was transformed by hydrocarbons: after oil, the exploitation of a giant gas field made it a financial power. Independent since 1971, the small emirate has pursued an ambitious foreign policy, with the Al Jazeera network and investments all over the world, and in 2022 it hosted the football World Cup, the first in an Arab country, criticised for the treatment of migrant workers.

People in Qatar speak Arabic, in a Gulf dialect, but English and the Asian languages of the huge foreign workforce are everywhere. The country is Sunni Muslim, with a tradition close to Saudi Wahhabism but more open to the world. Islam shapes daily life, festivals and the law, and the country allows places of worship of other faiths for its expatriates.

Qatari culture keeps alive the memory of its seafaring and pearl-diving past: the dhow, the sea and the desert remain at the heart of its identity. There is falconry, a national passion inherited from the Bedouin, camel racing, Arabian horses and the desert, where families camp at weekends. There is cardamom coffee and dates for guests, Doha's restored souk (Souq Waqif) and an open cultural ambition, with major museums of Islamic and modern art. The food, built on spiced rice and lamb (machboos), blends flavours from Arabia, Persia and India.