Iraq covers 438,317 square kilometres in western Asia, occupying most of the lower Tigris–Euphrates basin between the Levant, Anatolia, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. It borders Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south, and Jordan and Syria to the west, while a short coast on the northern Persian Gulf provides its maritime outlet. Baghdad stands near the centre of the populated river plain. Four broad landscapes organize the territory: the Zagros highlands and foothills of the north and northeast; the rolling Jazira uplands between the upper Tigris and Euphrates; the Mesopotamian alluvial plain running south through Baghdad and Basra; and the sparsely settled deserts and steppes of the west and southwest. In the far south, the two great rivers converge into the Shatt al-Arab amid marshes, canals and low-lying deltaic terrain, making watercourses the defining geography of Iraq’s demographic and economic core.
Climate follows that relief sharply. Most central and southern lowlands have long, intensely hot, dry summers, with daytime temperatures commonly exceeding 40°C, and cooler winters during which most annual rain falls. The western desert is drier still, while the northern foothills and Zagros mountains receive substantially more winter precipitation, including snow at higher elevations; parts of the Kurdistan Region receive more than 500 millimetres annually. These contrasts determine where rain-fed farming is possible and where irrigation is indispensable. The larger pressure is water security. Iraq depends heavily on the Tigris and Euphrates and on tributaries rising outside its borders, especially in Turkey and Iran. Reduced flows, recurrent drought, higher temperatures, salinization in the lower basin, inefficient irrigation and rising urban demand have shifted the country toward chronic water stress. Dust storms and desertification compound the problem, while sudden winter and spring downpours can still produce damaging floods in cities and river valleys.
Those climatic divisions support ecosystems ranging from Zagros forest-steppe and northern grasslands to western desert, riverine vegetation and the southern Mesopotamian marshes. The Ahwar of southern Iraq, inscribed by UNESCO in 2016 as a mixed natural-cultural World Heritage property, includes four major wetland components and archaeological landscapes associated with early Sumerian cities. The marshes were drastically reduced by drainage, upstream engineering, drought and conflict before large-scale reflooding began after 2003; renewed drought and declining water quality continue to threaten fisheries, reed beds, water buffalo husbandry and migratory-bird habitat. Agriculture remains organized around water availability. Wheat and barley dominate broad areas, with more rain-fed cultivation in the north and irrigation more important across the central and southern plains; dates, rice, vegetables and livestock also have regional roles. Because the most productive soils lie along rivers and irrigated zones, environmental degradation directly affects rural livelihoods, food production and the long-established concentration of settlement along the Tigris–Euphrates system.
The land now forming Iraq contains the core of ancient Mesopotamia, but the modern Iraqi state should not be projected backward onto the many societies that preceded it. From the fourth millennium BCE, southern city-states such as Uruk developed dense urban institutions, writing and irrigation systems; Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian polities later controlled different parts of Mesopotamia and wider regions. Successive Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian and Sasanian empires incorporated the area into larger imperial systems. The Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century transformed its political and linguistic setting, and Kufa and Basra became important early Islamic centres. In 762 the Abbasids founded Baghdad, which grew into a major administrative, commercial and intellectual centre linking the Mediterranean, Iran, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258 ended Abbasid rule there and badly damaged the city, though regional urban and religious life continued. Competing dynasties and then Safavid–Ottoman rivalry followed, with most of present-day Iraq incorporated into the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century until the First World War.
Modern borders and institutions emerged from the collapse of Ottoman rule and British occupation during the First World War. A large anti-British uprising in 1920 helped push London away from direct colonial administration toward an Iraqi monarchy, and Faisal I became king in 1921 under British tutelage. Iraq entered the League of Nations as an independent state in 1932, although Britain retained substantial strategic influence. The monarchy was overthrown in the 1958 revolution; the Baath Party consolidated power after 1968, and Saddam Hussein became president in 1979. His government launched the Iran–Iraq War in 1980, invaded Kuwait in 1990, and faced the 1991 Gulf War and a decade of sanctions. The United States-led invasion of 2003 toppled the Baathist regime but was followed by occupation, insurgency and severe sectarian violence. A 2005 constitution established a federal, representative parliamentary republic and recognized the Kurdistan Region. Islamic State seized Mosul and large territories in 2014 before losing territorial control in Iraq by 2017; later mass protests, especially in 2019, exposed persistent grievances over corruption, jobs, public services and political accountability.
Iraq’s economy remains unusually dependent on hydrocarbons, making state finances and the external balance highly sensitive to oil prices and OPEC+ production decisions. Crude oil provides the overwhelming majority of merchandise export earnings and a dominant share of public revenue, while most export infrastructure is concentrated around Basra and the Persian Gulf. The IMF estimated that non-oil growth slowed to about 2.5% in 2024, and World Bank data indicate that real GDP contracted by about 2.2% in 2025 as oil output was constrained and non-oil activity weakened. Services, construction, trade, agriculture, manufacturing and religious tourism broaden economic activity, but an outsized public payroll, limited private investment, weak job creation and governance constraints complicate diversification. Iraq also flares large quantities of associated natural gas while at times importing gas or electricity for domestic power generation, illustrating infrastructure inefficiency. The Iraqi dinar is the national currency, and investment priorities link energy reform with railways, ports, logistics and a larger private-sector role.
The 2024 General Population and Housing Census, Iraq’s first nationwide census in decades to include the Kurdistan Region, recorded 46,118,793 residents; about 70.2% lived in urban areas. Settlement is highly uneven: the western deserts are thinly populated, while the Tigris and Euphrates corridors, Baghdad basin, Basra region and northern foothill cities hold much of the population. Baghdad is by far the largest urban concentration and political centre, while Basra anchors the southern oil and port economy; Mosul, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah are major northern centres, and Najaf and Karbala combine large resident populations with major religious functions. Iraq is divided into 19 governorates following the formal establishment of Halabja as the nineteenth in 2025. The constitution recognizes the Kurdistan Region as a federal region, now comprising Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah and Halabja. The census deliberately avoided ethnicity and sectarian affiliation, so precise contemporary shares for Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and other communities should not be inferred from it.
Arabic and Kurdish are Iraq’s two official languages under the constitution, while Turkmen and Syriac have official status in administrative units where their speakers form a significant population; other communities maintain Armenian, Neo-Aramaic and additional local languages. Islam is the state religion and the faith of the great majority, but Iraq’s social geography includes Shi’a and Sunni Muslim traditions alongside Yazidi, Christian, Mandaean and other religious communities. Najaf and Karbala are major centres of Shi’a scholarship and pilgrimage, while the north has historically contained dense Kurdish, Yazidi, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac and Turkmen cultural landscapes. Baghdad’s long role as a literary and scholarly capital remains central to Iraqi intellectual history, and Kurdish literary institutions are especially prominent in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. The Iraqi maqam, recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, represents a sophisticated urban musical tradition. Marshland mudhif building, Basra’s shanasheel houses, calligraphy, poetry and modern visual arts likewise reflect different regional histories within one national cultural sphere.
Transport infrastructure follows the same north–south geography as population and trade. Roads carry most domestic passengers and freight, but maintenance quality varies sharply and conflict damaged many links in the north and west. Iraq’s principal railway spine connects the southern port zone through Baghdad toward Mosul; a World Bank-backed program approved in 2025 is designed to rehabilitate and modernize 1,047 kilometres of existing railway between Umm Qasr and Mosul. Umm Qasr remains the main established commercial port, while the Grand Faw Port near the Gulf has completed its first major berths and is being integrated with the proposed Development Road corridor toward Turkey. Baghdad International Airport is the principal federal gateway, supplemented by airports at Basra and Najaf, while Erbil and Sulaymaniyah serve the Kurdistan Region. The 2024 census reported electricity access for about 98% of the population, yet recent economic assessments still identify shortages and unreliable supply as constraints, showing the difference between formal connection and dependable service.
Iraq’s regional importance derives from the intersection of geography, energy and political history rather than from any single strategic label. It is an OPEC member with large oil resources, a Gulf exporter whose access routes matter to Asian energy markets, an Arab state sharing long frontiers with Iran and Turkey, and a potential overland link between the Gulf and Europe. The Development Road and Grand Faw projects seek to convert that position into logistics activity, but their value will depend on reliable rail, roads, customs, security and cross-border coordination rather than geography alone. Medium-term constraints are structural: dependence on volatile oil revenue, a rapidly growing and urbanizing population, weak private employment, water scarcity, electricity inefficiency, environmental degradation and unresolved federal-regional disputes over revenue and authority. Iraq therefore has leverage in regional energy, trade and diplomacy, but its influence will depend on whether state institutions can translate resource income and corridor geography into reliable public services, productive investment and water-secure development.
