Country Profiles
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Qatar
Qatar is a peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula; it shares its sole land border with Saudi Arabia to the south. The capital is Doha, home to over 80 per cent of the country’s inhabitants. Qatar has one of the highest levels of GDP per head in the world, and the highest in the GCC.
Maps & Flag
The population of Qatar was 2.8 million in early 2025, although only 348,000 of these individuals are Qatari. Analysts note that Qataris are provided with a wide range of social welfare benefits by the government, including free healthcare, education and subsidised housing. And suggest that because if this, Qataris nationals seem, on the whole, to be content, despite having little influence over politics, due to the generosity of the ruling elites (social welfare benefits in this small country are incredibly generous by any metric).
Notes Country profile information is compiled from, amongst others, the following sources. See the Reference list below for detailed information.
References
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| i | This is the website of Dr Emilie J. Rutledge who, with almost two decades’ worth of experience in managing, designing and delivering university-level economics courses, is currently Head of the Economics Department at The Open University.
 erutledge.com  Dr Emilie J. Rutledge Emilie has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers and is the author of “Monetary Union in the Gulf.” Her current research focus is on employability, the feasibility of universal basic incomes and, the oil-rich Arabian Gulf’s economic diversification and labour market reform strategies. On an ad hoc basis, Emilie provides consultancy on developing interactive university courses, alongside analytical insight on the political-economy of the Arabian Gulf. |