The 2016 UCI Road World Championships will be held in Qatar, cycling's world governing body announced on Wednesday.
At a meeting of the Professional Cycling Council and International Cycling Union (UCI) management committee in Maastricht, it was determined Doha should host the competition.
UCI sport and technical director Philippe Chevallier said: "The management of the Qatar candidature presented an extremely interesting project which incorporated innovative solutions which allowed for the designing of a technically interesting course.
"We are greatly looking forward to working with them."
The 2013 Road World Championships are scheduled to take place in Florence, Italy, while the 2014 event was awarded to Spain, but the current financial crisis means the competition may yet take place elsewhere.
A UCI statement read: "Concerning the UCI Road World Championships 2014, the management committee decided to grant the organisers of the Ponferrada (ESP) event 30 days to meet contractual commitments, after which time if these had not been met the event would be withdrawn from them."
The 2015 UCI Para-cycling Road Championships were awarded to Nottwil, Switzerland, while the 2013 BMX World Championships will take place in Auckland, New Zealand from July 24 to 28.
The UCI Junior Track World Championships will take place in Glasgow from August 7 to 11, 2013.
