جمهورية العراق
Jumhūriyyat ul-ʿIrāq
Jomhūrī-ye Īrāq
Republic of Iraq
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Motto
الله أكبر (Arabic)
"Allahu Akbar" (transliteration)
"God is the Greatest" |
Anthem
Mawtini (new)
Ardh Alforatain (previous)1
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Capital
(and largest city) |
Baghdad2
33°20′N, 44°26′E |
| Official languages |
Arabic, Kurdish3, Aramaic |
| Demonym |
Iraqi |
| Government |
Developing parliamentary democracy |
| - |
President |
Jalal Talabani |
| - |
Prime Minister |
Nouri al-Maliki |
| Independence |
| - |
from the Ottoman Empire |
October 1, 1919 |
| - |
from the United Kingdom |
October 3, 1932 |
| Area |
| - |
Total |
438,317 km² (58th)
169,234 sq mi |
| - |
Water (%) |
1.1 |
| Population |
| - |
2006 estimate |
26,783,3834 (40th) |
| - |
Density |
66/km² (125th)
171/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) |
2006 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$89.8 billion (61st) |
| - |
Per capita |
$2,900 (130th) |
| Currency |
Iraqi dinar (IQD) |
| Time zone |
AST (UTC+3) |
| - |
Summer (DST) |
ADT (UTC+4) |
| Internet TLD |
.iq |
| Calling code |
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| 1 |
The Kurds use Ey Reqîb. |
| 2 |
The capital of Iraqi Kurdistan is Arbil. |
| 3 |
Arabic and Kurdish are the official languages of the Iraqi government. According to Article 4, Section 4 of the Iraqi Constitution, Assyrian (Syriac) (a dialect of Aramaic) and Iraqi Turkmen (a dialect of Southern Azerbaijani) languages are official in areas where the respective populations they constitute density of population. |
| 4 |
[CIA World Factbook] |
The Republic of Iraq, usually known as Iraq (Arabic: العراق (help·info), IPA: .iˈrɑːq), is a country in the Middle East spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert. It shares borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the west, Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, and Iran to the east. It has a very narrow section of coastline at Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf. There are two major flowing rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the desert landscape that covers most of the Middle East.
Iraq is a developing parliamentary democracy composed of 18 governorates (known as muhafadhat). The capital city, Baghdad, is in the center-east. Iraq's rich history dates back to ancient Mesopotamia. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is identified as the Fertile Crescent—the cradle of civilization—and the birthplace of writing. During its long history, Iraq has been the center of the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Abbasid empires, and part of the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Parthian, Umayyad, Sassanid, Ottoman and British empires.
Since an invasion in 2003, a multinational coalition of forces, mainly American and British, has occupied Iraq. The invasion has had wide-reaching consequences: increased civil violence, political breakdown, the removal and execution of former president Saddam Hussein, and national problems in the development of political balance, economy, infrastructure, and use of the country's huge reserves of oil. According to the 2007 Failed States Index, produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq has recently emerged as the world's second most unstable country,[1] after Sudan.[2]
Etymology
The origin of the name "Iraq" (Arabic: العراق 'al-‘Irāq, Turkish: Irak, Assyrian: ܥܪܐܩ, Kurdish: عيَراق) is disputed. There are several suggested origins for the name. One dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk (or Erech); another maintains that Iraq comes from the Aramaic language, meaning "the land along the banks of the rivers"; another that Iraq refers to the root of a palm tree numerous in the country.
Under the Persian Sassanid dynasty, there was a region called "Erak Arabi," referring to the part of the south western region of the Persian Empire that is now part of southern Iraq. The name Al-Iraq was used by the Arabs themselves, from the 6th century, for the land Iraq covers.
In English, there are several ways of pronouncing Iraq.(1) [ɪ.ˈɹɑ(ː)k], (2) [ɪ.ˈɹæk]], (3) [aɪ.ˈɹæk]. (1) is the preferred pronunciation in most dictionaries, and the only pronunciation listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. MQD lists (2) first. (3) is closer to the Arabic than (2) is. The original Arabic pronunciation is [.iˈrɑːq].
Geography
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- Arab, 80%; Kurdish, 15%; Turkoman, Assyrian or other 5%.
Religious composition includes:
- Muslim, 97%; Christian or other, 3%.
There are no official figures available, mainly due to the highly politically charged nature of the subject. Two estimates of the Muslim proportions of the population are:
- Shi'a as much as 60%, Sunni about 40% (source: Britannica, Religion section of Iraq article).
Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37% (source: CIA World Fact Book).
The Shi'a are mostly Arabs, some are Turkmen and Faili Kurds, and almost all are Twelver school. Sunnis are composed of Arabs, Turkmen who are Hanafi school and Kurds who are Shafi school.
According to most western sources the majority of Iraqis are Shi'ite Arab Muslims (around 60%), and Sunnis represent about 40% of the population made up of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Sunnis hotly dispute these figures, including an ex-Iraqi Ambassador,[30] referring to American sources.[31] They claim that many reports or sources only include Arab Sunnis as 'Sunni', missing out the Kurdish and Turkmen Sunnis.
Ethnic Assyrians (most of whom are adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East) account for most of Iraq's Christian population, along with Armenians. Bahá'ís, Mandaeans, Shabaks, and Yezidis also exist. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, although the Faili (Feyli) Kurds are largely Shi'a.
As of November 4, 2006, the UNHCR estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[32] A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.[33]
Culture
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- Interview with Refugees International's Sean Garcia on the plight of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees [2]
- Shadid, Anthony 2005. Night Draws Near. Henry Holt and Co., NY, USA.
- Hanna Batatu, "The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq", Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978
- Iraq was one of the major settings for the John J. Rust science fiction novel "Epsilon"
- A Dweller in Mesopotamia, being the adventures of an official artist in the garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921. (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
- By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb (Mrs. Roland Wilkins) With illustrations and a map, 1908 (1909 ed). (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
External links
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Iraq
