 Saudi Arabia has proposed the construction of the Salwa Canal, which would run along the Saudi-Qatar border, effectively turning Qatar into an island.Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, documented the earliest account pertaining to the inhabitants of the peninsula around the mid-first century AD, referring to them as the "Catharrei", a designation which may have derived from the name of a prominent local settlement.A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, referring to it as "Catara".