Afjan () is a village in western

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

located in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Al-Shahaniya Al Shahaniya () is a municipality (3299 km2) in Qatar, with its municipal seat being a city of the Al-Shahaniya (city), same name (39 km2). Formerly in the municipalities of Qatar, municipality of Al Rayyan, but now an independent munic ...

. The city of

Dukhan Dukhan () is a city in the western municipality of Al-Shahaniya, Qatar. It is approximately west of the capital, Doha. Dukhan is administered by Qatar's state oil agency QatarEnergy and is the site of the first oil discovery in Qatar. It was pr ...

is to the north. Two main sections define this village: Western Afja and Eastern Afja, the former village being the larger of the two.

Etymology

Afjan is derived from the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

"", a word used to describe a habitat similar to a

sabkha A sabkha () is a predominately coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of a semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coast ...

(salt-flat) except for the fact that it is better suited to hosting vegetative life. Three dot this area (from west to east): Afjan Al Gharbi, Afjan Al Wusti, and Afjan Al Sharqi. The village is located within the confines of the latter .

History

The village was established in 1970 as a housing area for workers of the Dukhan oil fields. Like Al Zeghain to the north,

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

s of the

Manasir The Manasir people () constitute one of many Sunni Arab riverine tribes of Northern Sudan. They are not to be confused with the Manasir (tribe), Manasir of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Persian Gulf region in the Arabian Peninsula-based ma ...

tribe and Bani Hajr tribe formed the bulk of its early inhabitants. Approximately 20 households existed in the village around 1990.

References

Populated places in Al-Shahaniya {{Qatar-geo-stub