Al Qudaibiya Palace is a late 19th-century palace in the Gudaibiya district of Manama with a specific place in diplomatic history. On December 3, 1914, the Treaty of Protectorate was signed here between Britain and Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, the ruler of Bahrain. The treaty formalised what had been a de facto arrangement for decades: Bahrain would handle its internal affairs while Britain took responsibility for defence and foreign relations, making Bahrain a British protectorate. It was among the first such formal agreements of its kind in the Gulf and set a template for subsequent British arrangements with other Gulf rulers. The protectorate lasted until Bahrain's independence in 1971.
The palace itself is an example of the Gulf's pre-oil architectural tradition, built in coral stone and gypsum plaster with traditional courtyard structures. It is now used as a government guest house and is not open to the public, but the building is visible from the street and the exterior gives a good sense of the scale and style of elite Gulf domestic architecture from the period. The surrounding Gudaibiya district still retains some of its older residential character alongside more recent development.