Al Zubarah Archaeological Site and Fort

Al Zubarah is an abandoned 18th- and 19th-century pearling town on Qatar's north-west coast, about 100 km from Doha, with a 1938 fort that now serves as its exhibition building. It became Qatar's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013, and two to three hours covers the fort and the excavated town for anyone with a car.

The town lies in Al Shamal Municipality on a low, open coast facing Bahrain. Families of the Bani Utbah confederation, who had migrated from Kuwait, settled here around the 1760s, and the town quickly grew into a port for pearling and trade with links to India, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait. At its peak it may have held between 6,000 and 9,000 people. It is Qatar's largest archaeological site, and UNESCO inscribed it in June 2013.

Persian forces attacked the town in 1783, and after the Wahhabi occupation of 1809 an Omani force burned it in 1811. Zubarah was resettled in the late 1820s on only about a fifth of its earlier area. In 1878 Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani attacked it and moved most of its people to Doha, and the last residents left in the early 20th century because of poor water supply. Sand then covered the ruins.

The town covered about 60 hectares inside a defensive wall some 2.5 kilometres long with 22 semicircular towers. Excavations led by Qatar Museums and the University of Copenhagen have uncovered courtyard houses of local stone and gypsum plaster, streets laid partly on a grid, the market, a palace complex of nine linked compounds measuring about 110 by 110 metres, and date-press rooms where dates were crushed for syrup; a 2014 excavation found the largest date-pressing site in the country.

Al Zubarah Fort was built in 1937 and 1938 under Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, on a square plan with three round corner towers and one rectangular tower. It served as a coast guard station until the 1980s, was restored in 1987 and now holds displays on the history of the town. About 1.65 kilometres east of the town stand the remains of Qal'at Murair, built by 1768 to protect the wells.

Entry is ticketed through Qatar Museums, with opening hours that start later on Fridays. Start at the fort, where the service centre has restrooms, then use the shuttle and boardwalk to reach the excavated town about 2.5 kilometres away. There is almost no shade, so the cooler months and the early part of the day are best; allow two to three hours for the fort and the town.

The drive from Doha takes about 1 hour 15 minutes, north on Al Shamal Road and then west towards Al Zubarah, with parking at the fort; there is no public transport. Listed hours are 9:00 to 17:00. A boardwalk crosses the excavated town and a shuttle links it with the fort, and visitors with accessibility needs can write to Qatar Museums at infoheritage@qm.org.qa before they come. Summer temperatures often pass 40 °C, so November to March is the season to go.

Qatar Museums calls Al Zubarah the best-preserved example of an 18th- and 19th-century Gulf trading and pearl-fishing town. Among the excavated remains are mosques, courtyard houses, a market and date presses known as madabis. A new visitor centre on coastal and long-distance trade, pearling and everyday life is being developed, and a downloadable visitor guide and an aerial interactive story, Al Zubarah: Beyond the Fort, are on the Qatar Museums website. Hours run from 9:00 to 17:00 Saturday to Thursday and from 12:30 to 17:00 on Friday.