Iraq
Iraq,[a] officially the Republic of Iraq,[b] is a country in West Asia and in the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. With a population of over 46 million, it is the 31st-most populous country. It is a federal parliamentary republic that consists of 19 governorates. The country is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest, and Syria to the west. The capital and largest city is Baghdad. The Iraqi people are diverse; mostly Arabs, as well as Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Persians and Shabakis with similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Most Iraqis are Muslims – minority faiths include Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism.[9][3][10] The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish; others also recognized in specific regions are Turkish (Turkmen), Suret (Assyrian), and Armenian.[11]
This article is about the country in West Asia. For other uses, see Iraq (disambiguation).
Starting as early as the 6th millennium BC, the fertile alluvial plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, referred to as Mesopotamia, gave rise to some of the world's earliest cities, civilizations, and empires in Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria.[12] Mesopotamia was a "Cradle of Civilisation" that saw the inventions of a writing system, mathematics, timekeeping, a calendar, astrology, and a law code.[13][14][15] Following the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia, Baghdad became the capital and the largest city of the Abbasid Caliphate, and during the Islamic Golden Age, the city evolved into a significant cultural and intellectual center, and garnered a worldwide reputation for its academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom.[16] The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258 during the siege of Baghdad, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires.
Modern Iraq dates to 1920, when a Mandate was created by League of Nations. A British-backed monarchy was founded in 1921 under Faisal. The Hashemite kingdom gained independence from the UK in 1932. In 1958, the kingdom was overthrown and a republic was created.[17] Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath Party from 1968 to 2003, led by Al-Bakr and then by Saddam Hussein, as a one-party state. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, sparking a war that ended as a stalemate in 1988. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to a military campaign waged by a US-led international coalition that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. An invasion launched by another US-led coalition as part of its "War on Terror" in 2003 resulted in the defeat of Ba'athists and Saddam's execution. Discontent with the de-Ba'athification policies of the Provisional Authority stirred up an anti-American insurgency, which escalated into a sectarian civil war. In 2005, a new constitution was adopted and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in Iraq. Withdrawal of US troops began in 2008, and the occupation officially ended in 2011.[18] Continued repression and sectarian policies of Nouri al-Maliki's Shia government caused protests, after which a coalition of Ba'athist and Sunni militias took up arms during a campaign. The climax of the campaign was the North Iraq offensive by the ISID that marked its rapid territorial expansion, prompting the return of American troops to fight the war, which lasted until 2017. Iran has also intervened since 2014, expanding its influence through sectarian parties and Khomeinist militia groups, triggering widespread protests.[19]
Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic. The president is the head of state, the prime minister is the head of government, and the constitution provides for two deliberative bodies, the Council of Representatives and the Council of Union. The judiciary is free and independent of the executive and the legislature.[20] Iraq is considered an emerging middle power[21] with a strategic location[22] and a founding member of the United Nations, the OPEC as well as of the Arab League, OIC, Non-Aligned Movement, and the IMF. Iraq has the third largest oil reserves in the world after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Since its independence, Iraq experienced spells of significant economic and military growth and briefer instability including wars.
Name
There are several suggested origins for the name. One dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin.[23][24] Another possible etymology for the name is from the Middle Persian word erāq, meaning "lowlands."[25] An Arabic folk etymology for the name is "deeply rooted, well-watered; fertile".[26]
During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī ("Arabian Iraq") for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿAjamī ("Persian Iraq"),[27] for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran.[27] The term historically included the plain south of the Hamrin Mountains and did not include the northernmost and westernmost parts of the modern territory of Iraq.[28] Prior to the middle of the 19th century, the term Eyraca Arabica was commonly used to describe Iraq.[29][30]
The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the alluvial plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. As an Arabic word, عراق means "hem", "shore", "bank", or "edge", so that the name by folk etymology came to be interpreted as "the escarpment", such as at the south and east of the Jazira Plateau, which forms the northern and western edge of the "al-Iraq arabi" area.[31]
The Arabic pronunciation is [ʕiˈrɑːq]. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ (the only pronunciation listed in the Oxford English Dictionary and the first one in Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary[32]) or /ɪˈræk/ (listed first by MQD), the American Heritage Dictionary,[33] and the Random House Dictionary.[34]
When the British established the Hashemite king on 23 August 1921, Faisal I of Iraq, the official English name of the country changed from Mesopotamia to the endonymic Iraq.[35] Since January 1992, the official name of the state is "Republic of Iraq" (Jumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq), reaffirmed in the 2005 Constitution.[2][36][37]
Wikimedia Atlas of Iraq
Government
33°N 44°E / 33°N 44°E