Among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain. Al Da'asa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. 6500–3800 BC) have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Mesopotamian artifacts originating from the Ubaid period (c. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula. Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. HistoryĮxcavation of a Kassite dye site on Al Khor Island
In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is. Eventually, after several variations – 'Katr', 'Kattar' and 'Guttur' – the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the country's name. The term 'Catara' (inhabitants, Cataraei) was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which 'Katara' emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling. The map also referenced a town named "Cadara" to the east of the peninsula. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, referring to it as Catara. Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, documented the earliest account pertaining to the inhabitants of the peninsula around the mid-first century AD, referring to them as the Catharrei, a designation which may have derived from the name of a prominent local settlement.
Qatar is a World Bank high-income economy, backed by the world's third-largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development, having the third-highest HDI in the Arab world after United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. In terms of income, the country has the fourth-highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world, and the sixth-highest GNI per capita (Atlas method). In early 2017, Qatar's total population was 2.6 million: 313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates. The Gulf of Bahrain, an inlet of the Persian Gulf, separates Qatar from nearby Bahrain. Its sole land border is with neighbouring Gulf Cooperation Council monarchy Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. Qatar ( / ˈ k æ t ɑːr/, / ˈ k ɑː t ɑːr/ ( listen), / ˈ k ɑː t ər/ or / k ə ˈ t ɑːr/ ( listen) Arabic: قطر, romanized: Qaṭar local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar ( Arabic: دولة قطر, romanized: Dawlat Qaṭar), is a country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.