Rawdat Faras Research Station inside view

Rawdat Al Faras ( ar, روضة الفرس) is a village in

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

located in the

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

Al Khor Al Khor ( ar, الخور; also spelled ''Al Khawr''), officially Al Khor and Al Thakhira, is a municipality in coastal northeastern Qatar. Al Khor City, the municipal seat, is located in the northeast coast of Qatar, around from the capital, ...

. It is best known for its research station.

Etymology

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, "rawda" is a term used to denote a depression rich in vegetation due to water and sediment run-off. The second part of the name, "faras", translates to

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

, and was given because a wild mare was once found in the village.

Houbara Breeding Center

A breeding center for

houbara bustard The houbara bustard (''Chlamydotis undulata''), also known as African houbara, is a relatively small bustard native to North Africa, where it lives in arid habitats. The global population is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2014. ...

s is centered in the village. It received a donation of 1,065 houbaras from a UAE government-funded organization in 2014.

Research station

Established in 1976, Rawdat Al Faras Research Station is among the oldest research stations in the country. It occupies an area of 517,000 square meters. Activities engaged in at the center include consultation services for local farms,

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle Eas ...

research, field surveys of local fauna, and selling and donating palm tree seeds and seedlings. The station consists of a water reservoir and two specialized facilities that dry the palm trees, extract their pollen and provide storage for their dried fruit. There 24 growing plots, of which five are palm tree plantations, two of which host over 1,200 specimens. In recent years, the station has been focused on its development of a palm atlas, which will serve as a genetic database for researchers across the GCC.

Zoo

It was reported in 2018 that a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

would be opening in Rawdat Al Faras in the near future. Its specimens will be transferred from Al Khor Zoo.

References

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