[buckbeak14]

By Ahmed Kamel .


































Brief introductions to Qatar :


Ruled by the Al Thani family since the mid-1800s, Qatar transformed itself from a poor British protectorate noted mainly for pearling into an independent state with significant oil and natural gas revenues. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Qatari economy was crippled by a continuous siphoning off of petroleum revenues by the amir, who had ruled the country since 1972. His son, the current Amir HAMAD bin Khalifa Al Thani, overthrew him in a bloodless coup in 1995. In 2001, Qatar resolved its longstanding border disputes with both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Oil and natural gas revenues enable Qatar to have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and the advancement in Qatar till this day goes on as fast as any country can advance what with the Asian games coming up and the many new buildings Doha is fast turning into a metropolis . These are some examples of what Qatar used to look like and what it looks like now .




Around the 1930's :




around 2000 :





around 2005/2006 :






so through these pictures u can see the massive advancements that Qatar has gone through and still is going through and not only is Qatar trying to improve through its building it is also trying to improve its future and to do that it is providing new and excellent education . Especially with the new education city in Qatar which is still not quite ready and yet is being used for the various colleges : Cornell medical university , Carnegie mellon business and computer studies university , Texas A&M business university , and V.C.U art and design college as well as the prestigious Doha academy and military school .
pictures of the new education city :



Quick facts about Qatar :


Area :


total: 11,437 sq km
land: 11,437 sq km
water: 0 sq km


Elevation extremes :

lowest point: Persian Gulf 0 m
highest point: Qurayn Abu al Bawl 103 m



brief land use :

arable land: 1.64%
permanent crops: 0.27%
other: 98.09% (2001)
irrigated land : 130 sq km ( 1998 est. )




Population :

Doha : 339847 men : 219676 females : 120171
Al Rayyan : 272860 men : 185762 females : 87098
Umm salal : 31605 men : 18117 females : 13488
Al khor : 31547 men : 25319 females : 6228





Qatar is a relatively small country with only 1 main city ( 1 that can be called a city ) and a few towns some are listed below :

City : Doha the capital city average distance is 950 km in comparison with al Mannama , Abu Dhabi and Muscat .

Towns : Al khor , al Rayan , al Wukair , umm Salal , al Wakra . average distances between towns ( listed ) in Qatar : 8.59 km

Villages : al kheesa , al kharrara , abu samara , bin Zekreet , umm baby, Shaqra , al shah wan , al Wajbah . average distance between villages ( listed ) in Qatar : 3.5 km


Services available in all different types of settlements :


Services available in a hamlet ( hard to find in Qatar ) : small grocery shop , none others



Services available in a small village : small grocery shop , small junior school , bakery shop , mosque , daily bus service to town ( but mostly lower class ) .



Services available in a town : larger grocery shop , possibly a super market , larger senior school , small hospital or medical centre , a small football team , hardware shop and possibly a few small family owned restaurants private air strip possibly .



Services available in a capital city :university , hyper markets ,
malls , taxies, hospitals , hotels , malls , large stadiums , theatres , airport office buildings , high rise buildings and presidential buildings
( political based buildings ).













































































Qatar was distributed as it is now , because in older times Doha was all centered around the old C.B.D and it grew on from there . but now as the government has noticed that the old C.B.D is where most lower / older class housing is it is trying to move the C.B.D to the west bay area , to make it a modernized C.B.D but this is a lengthy and slow process yet the government is going the rite way about in doing it . but even though the transformation of C.B.D'S is not totally complete many people consider the west bay area to be the C.B.D .

The way the higher class housing is set out is that it is on the outskirts of the current Doha . higher class ( more modern ) housing is built here because it the only space available , and because in the middle of the city there is all the lower/older class housing .


The lower/class housing is built in the middle of the city because in older times that would have itself been the outskirts of the city
( hence the older houses now would've been new then ) but the government is pulling down many of the older housing around the souq's and such to make way for newer high rise buildings , although the older housing may not be a feast to look on nor to live in yet it is the countries older heritage , although it is not my decision but I see that as they Are building outside of the city where there is much space the older buildings should be left , possibly renovated but definitely not torn down .


One of the problems of Doha is that it has very few gardens and open spaces within the city boundaries , the reason there are no large parks is that it is amazingly costly to keep a park well maintained in a country like Qatar what with its hot weather and extremely low amounts of rain during the year , yet with the financial status of Qatar soaring there is talk of many parks opening up and already there have been many small government maintained gardens springing up all over the place . just to add some more beauty to the country which doesn’t need that much more .





The industrial area is set out quite a piece away from the main area of the city , this has been done to try and prevent the city from intermingling with the industrial area to prevent toxic fumes mixing with the civilians air supplies to prevent injury to civilians and workers as well ( as in to prevent distractions , car accidents , falling equipment ) and also to prevent immense traffic jams which would be inevitable should the thousands of civilian cars mix with the factory lorries and workers passing and such .



Qatar is well known for its amazing speed of advancement , especially thought the past 10 years , someone who had not been to Qatar for 10 years would most definitely recognize very little , for he would've left it a quiet small and almost empty country only to return to find it more of a city like Dubai or such then when he had left it , I as a student notice much about the growing educational facilities in Qatar , especially with the educational city , new universities of the best on earth , new schools and also of different types unseen before in Qatar , such as the A.S.P.I.R.E sports school for exceptionally talented athletes and the new military school for either those who look forward to a glamorous military career or possibly those who need , maybe a little more discipline to their name.





















Building advancements


10 years ago all Qatar buildings mainly comprised of low 2-3 storey villas of short 3-4 storey apartment blocks , yet now the building achievements are worthy even of comparison to the sky scrapers of Manhattan ( well maybe not yet , but were close ) all over the corniche new sky scrapers spring up every few months , buildings so immaculate in their design so artistic that they would make the Mona Lisa herself blush .

Yet these high rise buildings are mostly not residential buildings but that does not mean that there are no residential buildings coming up , quite the contrary as is happening on the corniche hundreds of modern large villa's are being built near the west bay are ( where the new C.B.D is supposed to be ) ( even more evidence that the government is trying to move the C.B.D )





























Worldwide advancements



Lately Qatar has becoming more and more known worldwide a few years ago very few people knew or cared about Qatar but now , it is growing into a large and extremely wealthy country it has a strong maybe not powerful yet strong political stance . many of the remarkable things done by Qatar to help people and to have its position as a great country are : the millions of dollars given in aid and cash to India and Singapore ( after the fatal tsunami of 2004 ) and also millions of other dollars in aid and cash to Pakistan and India ( after the devastating earthquakes of Kashmir ) that is other then all the other beneficial charities that Qatar government finances .



























Size advancements within Qatar

Inside Qatar geographically there have been some changes as well , such as the growth of cities , such as Doha rayyan and al khor ( as well as many others ) other then the growth of wealth with wealth comes people following and the people need buildings to live in hence when there where not enough the governments had to surpass the city and town boundaries to have enough space to house all the new immigrants . some of this is given below in evidence :


this is a map of the old doha as u can see this is not actually extremly long ago only about 20-30 years ago and yet you can see immense amounts of diffrence between this map and the one of current day doha below .




























Through the years these changes although they might have upset a few the majority agree with them , and other then popular opinion these changes have been necessary for Qatar is no longer a small country on the Arabian peninsula it is a wealthy dignified country and hence must change to take its position as a modernized and wealthy country . and as for the people who prefer not to change in every community and society there will be those that prefer the current state to a new and will not even observe it to notice that it is possible that the new state of the country or society is better then the old state .





Pros and cons of a growing city

pros

• there are many more entertainment features to be seen and enjoyed

• there are much more shops with many more varieties of objects to buy.

•wider variety of people to meet and to learn about , hence better socially and educationally.

•teachers at school come from different places on earth , you get to see many points of views of many different cultures , societies and country beliefs.

•people are more open to outsiders you feel more at home then you would feel at a place where you are the only foreigner .

Cons

•traffic jams are a regular occurrence

• at time with a growing population for a new comer there would be less changes of him/her getting a job .

•although most of the coming newly will be of good heart some will always be coming or turning for the worse hence the risk of physical or material injusry increases with the growing population .



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