Discover the Historical Al Zubarah Fort in Qatar

Al Zubarah, the greatest archaeological site in the State of Qatar, has been and will continue to be a true Qatari landmark, serving as a tribute to the nobility and heritage of the Qataris. It is a one-of-a-kind model for the social and economic change of the country because Zubarah is a cultural center that attracted many literary giants to the city. Zubarah expresses the genuine Qatari spirit and human contact between the sea and the desert.

The fortified coastal town of Al Zubarah on the Persian Gulf flourished as a pearling and economic hub in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before it was damaged in 1811 and abandoned in the early 1900s. A layer of blown sand from the desert has preserved the site's palaces, mosques, alleys, courtyard residences, and fishermen's huts, as well as its harbor and double defensive walls, a canal, walls, and cemeteries.

Al Zubarah joined the city's magnificent wall, residential palaces, houses, markets, industrial areas, and mosques on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2013. On June 22, the Fort commemorates its first anniversary of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Al Zubarah site serves as an impressive illustration of how a trading town at that time in the Gulf region grew and interacted with the surrounding desert environment. Al Zubarah is well-known for providing remarkable evidence of the bustling trade and pearl diving that preserved the area's major coast from the early Islamic period and before the 20th century. It is the core of several cultural and architectural institutions in this region. Despite the fact that only a small portion of the site has been excavated, it serves as an excellent example of an urban trading and pearl-diving tradition that supported the region's major coastal towns, encouraged the development of small independent states that thrived independently of the Ottoman, European, and Persian empires, and ultimately paved the way for the development of modern-day.

The Al Zubarah archaeological site is believed to have been one of the biggest during the 18th and 19th centuries, not only in the State of Qatar but also in the Arab Gulf. The Al Zubarah archaeological and cultural site is believed to have been a thriving port for the pearl trade and a center of culture during this time period, as shown by literary figures who appeared in the city.

A group of Danish researchers originally recognized Al Zubarah as an ancient site in the 1950s. After then, additional items were found during excavations conducted at the site by a team of Qatari archaeologists. A number of these objects are currently on display in the Qatar National Museum and the museum close to the archaeological site.

The 37th World Heritage Committee chose to add the historic site of Al Zubarah to the World Cultural Heritage List during its meeting in Cambodia on June 22, 2013, according to Dr. Nasser bin Hamad Al Hanzab, the Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to UNESCO. The judgment was backed by the Al Zubarah site's importance to human flourishing and community growth throughout Qatar's history, as well as by its connection to both.