Al Zeghain () is a village in

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 ...

. It is south of 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 ...

. A spring called Ain Al Zeghain is near the village.

Etymology

The literal translation from

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 ...

of "zeghain" is "armpit". This name was given to the area because its landscape resembles that of a

pit crater A pit crater (also called a subsidence crater or collapse crater) is a depression formed by the sinking or collapse of the surface lying above a void or empty chamber, rather than by the eruption of a volcano or lava vent. Pit craters are found ...

History

The village was established in 1950 as a housing area for oil workers employed in the

industrial city.

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 first inhabitants. Around 20 houses existed in the village around 1990, with most of its working population employed in the oil industry. As there were no schools in the village, children received their schooling in the city of Dukhan.

References

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