Old WWII Oil Map of Qatar and Bahrain, 1942: Doha, Manama, El Katif, Pipelines, Airfields

2026-04-29T22:54:08+01:00

Preis: 0.00 - 1975.00 (42 variants)

Hofuf is the original title of this meticulously compiled War Office chart, a fourth-edition World War II–era survey that gathers Qatar, Bahrain, and the adjoining Saudi littoral into a single strategic view. Issued in the early 1940s, it captures the Gulf at a turning point, as military necessity and the dawning oil age pressed for exact knowledge of coastlines, borders, air routes, and resources. The sheet’s crisp wartime symbology sets political divisions against color-shaded relief, while a precise latitude–longitude framework underpins every toponym and landmark. In its quiet way, the map narrates an era: a theatre of logistics and intelligence where airfields, seaplane stations, and newly significant industrial sites became as vital as ancient oases and harbor towns.

Oil development is the story threading the whole composition. In Bahrain, fields and pipelines are plotted with a draughtsman’s restraint, their courses marching toward export points along the archipelago’s edge. Across the water in Saudi Arabia, El Katif is handled with equal care, its constellation of wells, camps, and lines firmly inscribed into the desert’s pale tints. This is the moment when petroleum moves from rumor to infrastructure, and the War Office records it with clinical clarity—no boosterism, just the granular geometry of extraction. Traces of access roads, operational sites, and staging areas reveal how energy, strategy, and geography braided together in the Gulf’s transformation.

Across Qatar, the peninsula is articulated by a network of coastal and inland settlements—Doha and Wakra to the southeast, Lusail and Sumaisma to the north, Dakhira tucked onto sheltered waters, and further headlands and villages such as Ras Laffan, Ras Kutaifan, Ras al Marruna, Abu Dhaluf, Shakik, Fililia, Ras Abul Mushat, Ruwais, and Ras Imhish punctuating the shoreline. The coastline is drawn with particular finesse: a lacework of promontories and low-lying sabkha margins set against the gradient of interior rises, all keyed by color shading that conveys subtle topographical undulations. On Bahrain, Manama is noted as the principal urban node—an administrative and commercial anchor in a sea studded with navigationally significant inlets and shoal-strewn approaches.

Transportation networks—so central to wartime planning—are rendered with the same exactitude. Airfields and seaplane stations appear like strategic punctuation marks, aligning with overwater corridors and desert routes that knit settlements to resources and coastal embarkation points. The War Office’s disciplined graphic language is everywhere: a printed scale for measured movement, carefully differentiated tints for elevation, and legible, hierarchical labeling that lets eyes glide from peninsula to archipelago, from border demarcations to points of embarkation. In a single sweep, the map shows how the Gulf became legible to pilots, surveyors, and logisticians, compressing the complexities of air, sea, and sand into an intelligible, operational landscape.

Behind this clarity stands the British War Office, whose cartographers in the early 1940s fused reconnaissance, hydrographic precedent, and local reporting into dependable intelligence. Successive editions, of which this is the fourth, embody the pace of change: new wells sunk, pipelines extended, landing grounds established, and political boundaries asserted with sharpened confidence. Hofuf is thus more than a geographic reference; it is a stratigraphic slice of history. It preserves a pre-boom Gulf—Doha and Manama still close-knit to sea and shore—even as it foreshadows the region’s decisive turn toward oil, aviation, and global significance. For historians and connoisseurs alike, it is a document of origins rendered with disciplined, wartime grace.

Cities and towns on this map

Doha

Wakra

Lusail

Dakhira

Ras Laffan

Ras Abul Mushat

Ruwais

Sumaisma

Shakik

Ras al Marruna

Fililia

Ras Kutaifan

Abu Dhaluf

Ras Imhish

Manama

El Katif

Notable Features & Landmarks

Oil wells and oil pipelines

Airfields and seaplane stations

Major coastal and inland settlements

Topographical variations indicated by color shading

Latitude and longitude markings

Borders and coastlines

Historical and design context

Map title: Hofuf

Created by the War Office (UK)

Fourth edition, early 1940s (World War II era)

Documents early oil development in Bahrain and El Katif (Saudi Arabia)

Focuses on political and physical geography and oil-related infrastructure

Coverage: Qatar, Bahrain, and parts of Saudi Arabia

Design features include a printed scale and detailed, hierarchical labeling

Historically significant as an early record of Gulf oil exploration shaping regional geopolitics

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This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 100in (250cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.