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Qatar Qatar -- Population
The population of Qatar before independence must be
estimated
because, until oil revenues created a reason to stay on
the
peninsula, individuals and whole tribes migrated when the
economic or security situation became intolerable. Some
sought
work elsewhere; others joined neighboring branches of
their
tribe. In 1908 a British observer estimated there were
27,000
inhabitants; 6,000 were described as foreign slaves and
425 as
Iranian boatbuilders. (By 1930 the number of Iranians had
increased to 5,000, or almost 20 percent of the
population.) The
population probably remained fairly stable until the 1930s
and
1940s, when economic hardship and regional insecurity
caused
people to migrate to other areas, leaving Qatar with a
population
of only 16,000 in 1949, according to one estimate.
After oil exports increased in the 1950s, employment
opportunities attracted Arabs from other Persian Gulf
countries
and foreign workers (mostly Indians, at first) to Qatar.
In 1970
the Qatari government, assisted by British experts,
carried out a
census that reported a population of 111,113, of whom
45,039, or
more than 40 percent, were identified as Qataris. With the
oil
boom of the 1970s and the resultant influx of foreign
workers
came the largest population growth, so that by 1977 it was
estimated that 200,000 people lived in the country, about
65
percent of whom were non-Qataris. During the 1960-75
period, the
population grew at an average annual rate of 8.9 percent;
in the
1970-75 period it grew at 12.7 percent.
The census of March 16, 1986, counted a population of
369,079, and an estimate for 1990 brought the total to
371,863,
including up to 70,000 Qataris. The July 1992 estimate was
484,387, with a 1992 growth rate of 3.2 percent. The 1989
birth
rate was 31.8 per 1,000 population and the death rate 2.5
per
1,000, for a natural increase per 1,000 of 29.3, a high
rate for
a developing country.
The 1986 census showed that 84 percent of the population
was
concentrated in Doha and in the neighboring town of Ar
Rayyan.
Other towns included Al Wakrah (population 13,259) and Umm
Said
(population 6,094). In total, 88 percent of the population
was
urban. Reflecting the high number of migrant workers,
about 67
percent of the population was male. The age breakdown was
as
follows: under fifteen, 27.8 percent; fifteen to
twenty-nine,
29.3 percent; thirty to forty-four, 32.3 percent;
forty-five to
fifty-nine, 8.6 percent; and sixty and over, 2.0 percent.
South Asians (mainly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis,
and
Filipinos) made up about 35 percent of the population;
Qataris,
20 percent; Arabs, 25 percent; Iranians, 16 percent; and
others,
4 percent. Roughly 90 percent of the population was Muslim
(mostly
Sunni--see Glossary),
and the remainder were
Christian,
Hindu, Bahai, and other.
Data as of January 1993
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