Al Dafna is a seaside district of the Qatar

Qatar

Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...

i capital Doha

Doha

Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...

 located on the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

. The district is currently rapidly developing into a central business district

Central business district

A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

, and since the late 1990s dozens of skyscrapers have risen in the district, with over fifty more planned. The district is also home to the City Center mall, one of the Middle East's largest malls.

The district was literally created in the mid-1980s following a massive land reclamation

Land reclamation

Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...

 project along Doha's coastline, and started to develop in the mid-1990s. Today, Al Dafna is rapidly becoming Doha's new downtown

Downtown

Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's core or central business district ....

district, and with the massive amount of recent development towards the north of Doha, it is also rapidly becoming the new centre of the city.