Doha

The bay held small settlements of fishermen and pearl divers for centuries, the larger being Al Bidda, west of the present centre. Doha itself is generally dated to the 1820s; Al Bidda was bombarded by an East India Company vessel in 1821, and Doha and Al Wakrah were largely destroyed in 1867 in an assault mounted from Bahrain, during the struggles that ran along the Gulf coast. In 1868 a British- brokered agreement recognised Mohammed bin Thani as the leading figure of the peninsula, establishing the dynasty that still rules; an Ottoman garrison was stationed in Doha from 1871 until the First World War, and Qatar became a British protectorate in 1916, with Doha as its capital.

Pearling was the economy, and its collapse in the 1920s and 1930s — Japanese cultured pearls, then the Depression — left the town destitute, with people leaving for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Oil, found at Dukhan in 1939 and exported from 1949, reversed that slowly: the first school, hospital, power station and paved roads followed in the 1950s. Qatar became independent in 1971, and the discovery and development of the offshore North Field, the Qatari share of the largest natural-gas field in the world, changed everything from the 1990s.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who took power in 1995, turned gas revenue into a state-building project centred on Doha: Al Jazeera, Education City, Hamad International Airport, the museums, the metro, and a successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, whose stadiums and infrastructure remade the city and drew international scrutiny of conditions for migrant workers. A blockade by neighbouring states from 2017 to 2021 pushed Qatar towards self-sufficiency. The city has been affected by the regional war that began in February 2026, which has disrupted aviation and shipping across the Gulf.

Doha is two cities at once: a Qatari capital of a few hundred thousand citizens, and a vastly larger population of migrants from South Asia, the Philippines, the Arab world, Africa and the West. Qatari identity is expressed in dress — the white thobe and gutra for men, the black abaya and shayla for women — in the majlis, the reception room where men gather to talk, and in falconry, camel racing and the sadu weaving of desert wool, all of which the state supports as heritage.

The country's wealth has been spent deliberately on culture. Museums of international standing, an Islamic-art collection assembled from the 1980s, an orchestra, film and book festivals, public sculpture by well-known artists along the Corniche and at the airport, and Education City's branch campuses of American and European universities all belong to that policy, along with sport: the World Cup, motor racing, tennis, athletics and the Aspire academy.

Manners are formal and hospitable. Greetings are drawn out, coffee and dates are offered at the start of any visit, and the right hand is used for eating and giving. Religion is visible — the call to prayer, Friday closure at midday, and a dry public realm — and the norms are enforced by law as well as custom: modest dress, no public drinking, no displays of affection, and restraint in criticising the state or religion. Outside those limits the city is relaxed with visitors, and English is spoken almost everywhere.

About a million people live in Doha, and the great majority of Qatar's population of about 3 million lives in the wider metropolitan area running from Al Wakrah in the south to Lusail in the north. Qatari nationals are a small minority, perhaps a tenth of the total; the rest are foreign residents, from labourers and domestic workers to engineers, teachers and bankers, on employment-linked residence.

The economy rests on liquefied natural gas and the sovereign wealth it funds, with construction, aviation, finance, logistics, health, education and government employment layered on top. Wages and conditions for migrant workers drew heavy international criticism in the years before the World Cup, and labour rules were changed, including the ending of exit permits and the introduction of a minimum wage; enforcement remains debated. Qatari citizens receive extensive state benefits and are concentrated in public-sector employment.

Life follows the heat and the calendar. The working week runs Sunday to Thursday, Friday morning is for prayer and family, and from May to September activity moves indoors or into the night, with parks, beaches and the Corniche coming alive after dark. Malls function as public space, the metro has changed how many people move, and traffic remains heavy. In the cooler months families drive out to the dunes and the coast at weekends, camping in the desert through the winter season.

Qatari home cooking is Gulf cooking, built on rice, lamb, chicken and fish with Indian and Persian spicing. Machboos — rice cooked with meat or fish, dried lime, saffron and baharat — is the national dish; madrouba is a soft, porridge-like rice and chicken dish; harees, wheat and meat beaten to a paste, is eaten especially in Ramadan; and thareed is meat and broth soaked into crumbled flatbread. Breakfast can be balaleet, sweet vermicelli under an omelette, or chebab pancakes with date syrup and cream.

Fish is central on this coast: hamour, safi, king fish and prawns, grilled whole or cooked into rice. Dates are served with everything, and Arabic coffee, pale green with cardamom, is poured from a long-spouted dallah into small cups, with three cups the customary limit. Luqaimat, fried dough balls soaked in date syrup and sesame, are the standard sweet, and karak — strong black tea boiled with evaporated milk, sugar and cardamom, an import from South Asia — is drunk at stands across the city at all hours.

The everyday food of Doha is the food of its migrant population: South Indian dosa and biryani, Pakistani karahi, Filipino canteens, Egyptian koshari, Iranian kebabs, Levantine mezze and shawarma, and Yemeni mandi and haneeth, roasted lamb and rice served on a shared tray. Souq Waqif holds the greatest concentration of restaurants, while alcohol is confined to licensed hotel bars and restaurants.