Ruled by the al-Thani family since the mid-1800s Qatar transformed itself from a poor British protectorate noted mainly for pearling into an independent state with significant oil and natural gas revenues. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Qatari economy was crippled by a continuous siphoning off of petroleum revenues by the Amir who had ruled the country since 1972. His son the current Amir HAMAD bin Khalifa al-Thani overthrew him in a bloodless coup in 1995. In 2001 Qatar resolved its longstanding border disputes with both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. As of 2007 oil and natural gas revenues had enabled Qatar to attain the second-highest per capita income in the world. Read more on Wikipedia
