0471 BAHRAIN - North Gate of Hamad Town

0471 North Gate of Hamad Town

This postcard don't depicts a landscape on Mars after the colonization of the planet, as it seems at first glance, but two of the 22 roundabouts for which is famous Hamad Town (Madinat Hamad), a city in northern Bahrain, located at 18 km South of Manama, the capital of the kingdom, which name refers to the current king, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifah.

Hamad Town was set up in 1984 as a "housing town", where the government built council houses for those who couldn't afford the ever increasing house prices. In 1990 the government provided free houses and schools to the Kuwaiti people, who returned home in early 1991 at the end of the gulf war. Also in 2001 the government gave the council houses to the people of Hamad town for free.

Residential addresses are based on the number of the nearest roundabout. The population of the town is about 130,000 inhabitants, supplanting Isa Town in regard to population density ranking. It's mostly a residential area, so the resident work in Manama.

About the stamps, depicting the king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, I wrote here.

Sender: Edwin G. Saliendra (direct swap)
Sent from Budaiya (Bahrain), on 03.01.2013