These galleries present pivotal moments in Qatar's modern history, from 1500s to the present. These moments have made Qatar into the nation that we know today. Discover the leaders who have guided their people, the battles and events that have defined the nation and Qatar's vision for the future. The history of the nation unfolds through letters, newspapers, maps, artefacts, stamps, currency, historical photographs and testimonies of the people. They are witnesses to his crucial period, which continues to shape the development of the country and to enrichthe collective memory of the Qatari people.

The presented maps show the development of the geographical information about Qatar over the time. Although the maps drawn up between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries AD contained references associated with the name of Qatar, they did not show an accurate drawing of the shape of the peninsula before the nineteenth century.
The oldest references of Qatar on the maps go back to the Greek manuscripts taken from the Geography (Geographical Guidance) written by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, in which he referred to Qatar as "Katara". This book formed the only sources of information for mapping the Arabian Gulf region, until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century.
The Portuguese navigational maps of the Indian Ocean formed a new source of knowledge about the region. In the eighteenth century, the Dutch developed the geographical information recorded by the Portuguese, by adding names of the new areas to it. But the first accurate drawing of Qatar Peninsula and the first documentation of the names of its towns did not appear until the 1820s, when the English India Company conducted a detailed survey of the Arabian Gulf region.