Six interrelated forces have, indelibly stamped the capital city and the small peninsular nation that it serves.

• A seemingly barren desert, which nevertheless has managed to support human life for the past five millennia.
• The marvelously cordial and world famous Arab hospitality, which grew out of the need of desert people to physically support and nurture one another through hard times in a harsh and unforgiving environment.
• Incredibly rich fishing and pearl-diving opportunities, which originally attracted the Qatari people to Doha Bay.
• The lively peculiarities of a pre-modern barter economy, still in evidence in the souqs or old-town traditional market places.
• The adoption of Islam, which cradles, inspires and touches all activities within the state.
• The sudden discovery of subterranean oil in the mid-20th Century, which took the Qataris from pearls to petroleum, from camels to cartels in two generations.

Thus, at the dawn of a new millennium, Doha remains a fascinating amalgam of old and new, of the traditional and the ultra-modern. There are few places like it on Earth.