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Qatar
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Qatar in a nutshell
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Qatar (Arabic: قطر ) officially the State of Qatar (Arabic: دولة قطر transliterated as Dawlat Qatar), is an Arab emirate in Southwest Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the larger Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south; otherwise the Persian Gulf surrounds the state. An oil rich nation, Qatar has the highest GDP per capita in the world.
Sources say the name may derive from "Qatara", believed to refer to the Qatari town of Zubara, an important trading port and town in the region in ancient times.
In English-language broadcast media within Qatar — for example, television commercials for Qatar Airways and advertisements concerning economic development in Qatar — the name is pronounced "KA-tar", with a distinct differentiation between the syllables from the forming of the "t" sound.
In July 2007, the country had a growing population of approximately 900,000 people of whom approximately 350,000 were believed to be citizens. Of the citizen population, Sunni Muslims form a majority (almost all Qataris profess Islam), while the Shi'a Muslims count up to 10-13% of the population. The Wahhabi Muslims form the third group in size, probably no more than 10% of the population, to include the ruling dynasty and a large number of the elite families. The ancient Shia community of Qatar are historically related to the Shia majority in Bahrain and the al-Hasa coastal province of Saudi Arabia.
Besides ethnic Arabs, much of the population migrated from various nations to work in the country’s oil industry. Arabic serves as the official language. However, English as well as many other languages like Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Persian are widely spoken in Qatar.
Expatriates form the majority of Qatar’s residents. The petrochemical industry has attracted people from all around the world. Most of the expatriates come from South Asia and from non-oil-rich Arab states. Because a large percentage of the expatriates are male, Qatar has a heavily skewed sex ratio, with 1.8528 males per female.
The majority of the estimated 800,000 non-citizens are individuals from South and South East Asian and Arab countries working on temporary employment contracts in most cases without their accompanying family members. They are of the following faiths: Sunni Muslims, Shi'a Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Bahá'ís.