Doha, Qatar
Doha is the capital and most populous city of the State of Qatar. Doha has a population of 1,351,000 in the city proper with the overall population close to 1.5 million. The city is located on the coast of the Persian Gulf in the east of the country. It is Qatar's fastest growing city, with over 50% of the nation's population living in Doha or its surrounding suburbs, and it is also the economic centre of the country. Doha was founded in the 1820s as an offshoot of Al Bidda. It was officially declared as the country's capital in 1971, when Qatar gained independence. As the commercial capital of Qatar and one of the emergent financial centers in the Middle East, Doha is considered a world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Doha accommodates Education City, an area devoted to research and education. The city was host to the first ministerial-level meeting of the Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. It was also selected as host city of a number of sporting events, including the 2006 Asian Games, the 2011 Pan Arab Games and most of the games at the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. In December 2011, the World Petroleum Council held the 20th World Petroleum Conference in Doha. Additionally, the city hosted the 2012 UNFCCC Climate Negotiations and is set to host a large number of the venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In May 2015, Doha was officially recognised as one of the New7Wonders Cities together with Vigan, La Paz, Durban, Havana, Beirut, and Kuala Lumpur. More information is available on Wikipedia
Today we focus our tour over the city of Doha (also ad-Dawhah), in eastern Qatar. Doha is the capital and largest city of the country, on the Persian Gulf. It has a large, artificial deep-water port, which was opened in 1969 and serves as a major shipping centre for cargo around the Persian Gulf. Shrimp fishing and processing are important industries. The University of Qatar (1973) and the National Museum (1975) are located here. The market-place and the Government House (1969) are well known landmarks. More than half the population of Qatar resides in Doha. Until the 19th century, Doha was a small fishing and pearl-fishing village, known to Persian Gulf pirates for the protection afforded by its old port of al-Bida. It became the administrative centre of the British Qatar protectorate in 1916. Doha grew rapidly after petroleum exports, which became operational in 1949, brought vast new revenue sources to the national government and income to the local economy. In 1971 Doha became the capital of the independent state of Qatar. In these images acquired by the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites with a time window (before/after) of twenty-three years, we aim to show the large expansion of Doha. The images clearly demonstrate how the city has changed and grown. Notable are the development of artificial islands (Marsa Arabia, Viva Bahriya, Porto Arabia and Dana Island) which have been constructed just offshore of the city. This picturesque 'island-within-an-island' is a feature of exclusive hotels serving Qatar's business travellers. We can also see that the International Airport of Doha has changed, and the 2017 image shows the new Hamad International Airport, which today is situated on an artificial structure located in the southern part of the city on the coast. It is the only commercial airport in Qatar. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals, where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at:  View Landsat 5 TM high resolution image (JPG 3.7 MB) View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 3.9 MB)
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