MADINAH 'ISA

English Isa Town planned community in the state and emirate of Bahrain, north-central Bahrain island, in the Persian Gulf. Conceived and underwritten by the Bahraini government as a residential settlement, it was laid out on an uninhabited site by British town planners in the early 1960s; the first units were occupied in 1968. The town is named for Sheikh 'Isa ibn Salman Al Khalifah, who ruled Bahrain when the town was established. As a new town, Madinah 'Isa has modern schools and libraries and a vehicle-free shopping centre. A stadium and Olympic-sized swimming pool are other distinctive features. Since it was designed to attract an economic cross section of Bahrain's inhabitants, houses of varying sizes have been erected. Householders had a period of 1520 years to pay for their new dwellings; payments of the first residents were put into a fund to permit further expansion and development. Though originally planned for an optimum 15,000 inhabitants, the project had that number in its first stage by the late 1970s, and housing was subsequently expanded. Pop. (1991) 34,509.