🇶🇦 Qatar
Doha
Doha (الدوحة — population 2.4 million) is the most dramatically transformed desert city in the history of urban development: from a pearl-diving village of 12,000 in 1950 to a futuristic skyline of skyscrapers in 70 years — the fastest single urban transformation in human history, powered by the third-largest natural gas reserves in the world. Doha hosted the FIFA World Cup 2022 (the most controversial single tournament in World Cup history: the most heat-challenged tournament requiring the most unprecedented schedule change to winter — the first World Cup ever held in November-December in the most air-conditioned single football stadiums in history). The Museum of Islamic Art (the most architecturally important single Islamic art museum on Earth — designed by I.M. Pei: his final masterpiece), the Souq Waqif (the most authentically restored traditional souq in the Gulf), the Corniche waterfront (the most photographed single crescent skyline in the Middle East), and the National Museum of Qatar (designed by Jean Nouvel — the most desert-rose-inspired single museum building in the world) make Doha one of the most architecturally astonishing cities in the world.