Baghdad

Baghdad rises from the broad, flat plain at the heart of Mesopotamia, its sinuous Tigris bisecting a city that has endured the full sweep of human ambition and ruin. Here, where the river’s alluvial silt deposits have created land of quaternary origin, the metropolis stretches over some 673 square kilometres, home to more than seven million souls—nearly a quarter of Iraq’s population. From the forest of minarets that punctuate the skyline to the wide avenues that curve toward the ancient Round City’s vanished walls, the capital bears the imprint of successive civilizations and modern upheavals.

In 762 AD the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur chose this marsh-edged site to found a new capital. The Round City, girded by concentric walls and anchored by the caliphal palace and Great Mosque, soon gave way to expansion beyond its ramparts. As the Islamic Golden Age flourished, Baghdad rivalled Chang’an in population, swelling past one million inhabitants. Scholars translated Greek treatises and compiled treatises of mathematics, medicine and astronomy within the fabled House of Wisdom. Multiethnic and multi-confessional communities—Persian, Arab, Syriac, Jewish, Mandaean—found a precarious harmony, lending the city its sobriquet as the “Center of Learning.”

That era ended in 1258, when Hulagu Khan’s Mongol forces collapsed the city’s defenses and sacked palaces and libraries. In subsequent centuries plagues, shifting dynasties—the Ilkhanate, Turco–Persian rulers, Mamluks, Ottomans—stunted Baghdad’s recovery.

Under Ottoman administration, Baghdad was seat of its eponymous vilayet. In 1917 British troops captured the city; by 1921 it served as capital of the Mandate of Mesopotamia. Upon Iraqi independence in 1932, the city resumed a role as regional cultural nexus. Oil revenues of the mid-20th century ushered in reconstruction and a modest renaissance of palaces and public buildings.

The 2003 invasion wrought new devastation. Historic façades crumbled and priceless artifacts were lost. The insurgencies of 2011–2013, and the rise of the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017, brought one of the world’s highest rates of terror incidents. Since 2017, following the territorial defeat of IS, the security situation has improved, and attacks have become rare.

Baghdad occupies a plain drained by the Tigris, which divides the city into Rusafa on the east bank and Karkh on the west. To the southeast the Diyala River skirts the suburbs before joining the Tigris. Elevation scarcely exceeds forty metres above sea level, leaving the city vulnerable to spring floods before modern controls were erected.

The climate is unequivocally desert (Köppen BWh). Summers are prolonged and merciless: daytime temperatures routinely approach 44 °C from June through August, with a record high of 51.8 °C on 28 July 2020. Nights offer scant respite, seldom dropping below 24 °C. Rain in summer is virtually nonexistent. Winters are short and mild, with highs of 16–19 °C and nocturnal frosts only sporadically. Annual precipitation, confined to November–March, averages 150 mm but fluctuates sharply; in 2008 light snow fell for the first time in a century, and again in February 2020.

Administratively, Baghdad Governorate is divided into nine municipalities, further split into districts and sub-districts. Pre-2003 these units managed municipal services without political voice. The Coalition Provisional Authority later introduced neighborhood caucuses: 88 neighborhood councils elected representatives to district councils, which in turn formed the 37-member city council. Subsequent reforms expanded neighborhoods to 89. Outside the city, local councils in twenty nahias send delegates to six qada district councils, linking villages and towns to provincial governance.

Baghdad’s population—7.22 million in 2015—comprises a tapestry of ethnicities and faiths. Iraqi Arabs form the majority; minorities include Kurds (some 300,000, largely Shiʿa of Luri descent clustered around the Quarter of Kurds), Turkmen in Adhamiyah and Ragheba Khatun, Assyrians primarily in Karrada and Mansour districts, and Kawliya of Domari heritage. Small Circassian quarters endure alongside communities of Mandaeans, Bahaʾis and Sikhs.

Religious affiliation is chiefly Muslim, now a slight Shiʿa majority (approximately 52 per cent), with Sunnis, long dominant, reduced by sectarian displacement. Christians—once 300,000–800,000 before 2003—number near 100,000 today, divided among Chaldean Catholic, Syriac Catholic, Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox denominations. Baghdad’s Jewish population has dwindled to some 160, concentrated in old quarters such as Bataween and Shorja.

As Iraq’s seat of government, Baghdad hosts national ministries, state enterprises and the central bank. The city generates roughly 40 per cent of GDP. Heavy industries—cement, tobacco, textiles, leather—cluster in the metropolis and satellite towns like Taji. Refineries at Dora process over 200,000 barrels daily. Recent discoveries of aluminum, nickel and other minerals await appraisal.

Headquarters of Iraq National Oil Company, Iraqi Airways and the stock exchange line Al-Rasheed Street, which also hosts multinational branches—Shell, Honeywell, GE. NGOs have established business incubators to mitigate chronic under-employment in the public sector. Shopping complexes such as Baghdad Mall and Dijlah Village hint at a nascent consumer culture.

Public transport is undeveloped; private taxis dominate congested streets designed for 700,000 vehicles yet bearing up to three million cars. River transit offers relief, with ferries and small boats ferrying commuters across the Tigris. Four major bridges—14 July, A’immah, Sarafiya among them—span the river; nineteen more are planned. Arterials like Damascus Street, Hilla Road and Abu Nuwas Street structure the urban grid. Baghdad International Airport, opened in 1982, resumed operations in 2000 under its current name and serves as Iraq’s principal air gateway.

Despite looting and ruin, Baghdad retains an array of historic and modern landmarks. The National Museum, though stripped of many antiquities, preserves pre-Islamic relics. The Iraqi National Library suffered grievous losses of manuscripts. Al-Shaheed Monument and Victory Arch stand in Grand Festivities Square, memorializing the Iran–Iraq War and, more recently, all martyrs.

Religious edifices testify to the city’s plural past: Masjid al-Kādhimayn draws millions of Shiʿa pilgrims to the tombs of Imams Musa al-Kadhim and Muhammad at-Taqi each year. The 10th-century Haydar-Khana Mosque and cafés such as al-Zahawi line Al-Rasheed Street. In Rusafa, Mutanabbi Street pulses with booksellers, a living archive of Iraqi letters. Qushla, the Ottoman barracks complex, offers shaded gazebos for poetry readings beneath its iconic clock tower, a gift of George V now on UNESCO’s tentative list.

The Jewish legacy endures at Meir Taweig Synagogue and Al-Habibiyah Cemetery; the Great Synagogue stands as museum. The Mandaean Mandi in al-Qadisiyah anchors the community’s rituals, even as plans for a larger temple gather momentum. Sikh pilgrims once flocked to the Baba Nanak Shrine; today its reconstruction remains unrealized. The house of Baháʼu’lláh, destroyed in 2013, still draws Bahaʾi visitors.

Modern cultural institutions include the National Theater—under restoration after 2003 depredations—alongside the Music and Ballet School, Institute of Fine Arts and the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, whose repertoire blends European classics with indigenous instruments. Baghdad joined UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature in 2015, acknowledging centuries of verse that celebrate and lament the city.

In recent years, reconstruction has repaired roads and bridges, even as grand projects—Romantic Island on the Tigris, new palaces and the Central Bank Tower—are delayed by bureaucracy and corruption. CNBC reported some 150 planned entertainment complexes, though many stall. Private initiatives in start-up hubs and co-working spaces signal a youthful entrepreneurial spirit.

Religious tourism has rebounded, as pilgrims from Iran, Pakistan and India fill the avenues leading to Al-Kadhim and Abu Hanifa mosques; secular visitors from Turkey, France and the United States browse museums and book stalls. Annual pilgrim numbers approach one million. Yet the old city’s narrow alleys and shattered façades still bear the scars of war.

Baghdad endures as a city of startling juxtapositions: burning summer heat shading into verdant riverbanks, centuries of learning shadowed by ruins. Its history is written in clay bricks and marble portals, in libraries both extant and vanished. Modern skyscrapers rise beside Ottoman domes; poets issue verses from cafés that outlasted caliphs. Here, amid the river’s steady current, one hears the relentless cadence of a city that has survived conquest, famine and sectarian strife—and yet remains, indelibly, alive.