Iraq
Name
| Official name | Republic of Iraq — Jumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq (جمهورية العراق); Komarî Êraq (کۆماری عێراق) |
|---|---|
| Former names | Mesopotamia; the Ottoman vilayets of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul (to 1918); the British Mandate of Mesopotamia (1920–1932); the Kingdom of Iraq (1921–1958) |
| Demonym | Iraqi |
| Meaning of the name | Al-Iraq, the lower river land — from Uruk, the first city, or from the Arabic for the shore; Mesopotamia, "between the rivers," to the Greeks |
| Motto | None official — "Allahu Akbar" on the flag |
Quick facts
| Capital | Baghdad — founded 762 by al-Mansur; about 8 million in the governorate |
|---|---|
| Largest cities | Baghdad; Basra, about 2.5 million; Mosul; Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region; Kirkuk; Najaf; Karbala; Sulaymaniyah; Nasiriyah |
| Official languages | Arabic and Kurdish; Turkmen, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Armenian official where their speakers live; English in business |
| Currency | Iraqi dinar — ISO code IQD, ID; 1,310 to the U.S. dollar at the official rate since 2023; the dollar in wide use |
| Time zone | Arabia Standard Time, UTC+3, all year |
| Calling code | +964 |
| Internet domain | .iq |
| ISO 3166 codes | IQ · IRQ · 368 |
| Vehicle registration code | IRQ |
| Driving side | Right |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C, D and G — and the private generators of every street |
| Independence | 3 October 1932, from the British Mandate — the League of Nations' first mandate to end; the republic 14 July 1958 |
| National days | 3 October, Independence Day, restored as the national day in 2020; 14 July, Republic Day; 1 January, Army Day; 10 December, the victory over the Islamic State, 2017; the Shia feasts and mournings — Ashura and the Arbaeen pilgrimage of 20 million to Karbala; Nowruz for the Kurds |
| Constitution | 15 October 2005 — approved by referendum after the invasion; the federal republic with the Kurdistan Region's autonomy, Islam a foundational source of law, the powers shared by the sects' convention |
| Population | 45.4 million at the census of 20 November 2024 — the first full census since 1987; about 46 million (UN, 2025 est.) |
| Area | 438,317 km² (169,235 sq mi) — land 437,367 km², water 950 km² |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | A horizontal tricolor of red, white and black — the Arab Liberation colors, the Ba'ath flag of 1963 — with the Takbir, "Allahu Akbar," in green Kufic script across the white band; the three green stars of Saddam's flag removed and the script recast in the Kufic on 22 January 2008, the flag of the republic since.Flag of Iraq |
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| Coat of arms | The Eagle of Saladin, golden, bearing a shield of the flag with the Takbir, over a scroll with the name of the republic in Kufic — the eagle of the Ayyubid sultan born at Tikrit; adopted 1965, revised 2008 |
| National anthem | "Mawtini" ("My Homeland") — the poem of the Palestinian Ibrahim Tuqan, 1934, set by the Lebanese Mohammed Flayfel; adopted 2004 in place of "Ard al-Furatayn" of the Saddam years |
| National colors | Red, white, black and green |
| National bird | The chukar partridge — widely cited; the golden eagle of the arms |
| National animal | The lion of Babylon — the basalt lion of the ruins and the football team's name; the Asiatic lion gone since the 1910s; widely cited |
| National tree | The date palm — the nakhla, once 30 million of them, the most in the world; widely cited |
| National dish | Masgouf — the carp of the Tigris split and grilled by the fire; the dolma; the kubba; the samoon bread; the dates; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag and arms are fixed by the laws of 2008; the anthem by the decision of 2004; the bird, animal, tree and dish are widely cited, none designated |
Geography
| Location | Western Asia — the land between the rivers from the Zagros and the Turkish mountains to the Gulf; Iran to the east, Turkey north, Syria and Jordan west, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait south |
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| Land borders | 3,809 km (2,367 mi) with six countries — Iran 1,599, Saudi Arabia 811, Syria 599, Turkey 367, Kuwait 254, Jordan 179 |
| Coastline | 58 km (36 mi) on the Gulf — the shortest of the region's oil states; the al-Faw peninsula and the new Grand Faw port |
| Highest point | Cheekha Dar, 3,611 m (11,847 ft), on the Iranian border in Kurdistan |
| Lowest point | The Persian Gulf, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 312 m (1,024 ft) |
| The rivers | The Tigris, 1,400 km of its 1,850 in Iraq, through Mosul and Baghdad; the Euphrates, 1,160 km of its 2,800, through Ramadi, Fallujah, Karbala and Nasiriyah — joining at al-Qurnah into the Shatt al-Arab, 200 km to the Gulf, the border with Iran along its last half; both dammed in Turkey and Syria and running at a third of their old flow; the Great Zab and the Diyala from Iran |
| The marshes | The Mesopotamian marshes of the south — the Hawizeh, the Central and the Hammar, once 20,000 km², drained by Saddam in the 1990s to under a tenth to punish the Marsh Arabs, reflooded after 2003 and a World Heritage site since 2016; the reed houses of the Ma'dan; the drought of the 2020s drying them again |
| Terrain | The alluvial plain of the two rivers, a third of the country; the western and southern deserts, another third; the uplands of the Jazira between the rivers; the mountains of Kurdistan in the northeast |
| Climate | Desert — the summers above 50°C in Basra, which recorded 53.9°C in 2016, among the highest ever measured reliably; mild winters; the snows of Kurdistan; the shamal wind and the dust storms of the drought |
| Natural hazards | The dust storms of the 2020s — Baghdad's skies orange for days; drought and the shrinking rivers; the floods of the past; the heat that empties the streets; earthquakes in the north — Halabja 2017 |
| Natural resources | Oil — the fifth-largest proven reserves in the world, about 145 billion barrels, in the south around Basra and at Kirkuk; natural gas, flared in the fields; phosphates at Akashat; sulfur; the water, no longer |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 18%; forest about 2% |
| National parks | The Mesopotamian Marshes National Park of 2013, the country's first; the Halgurd-Sakran park of Kurdistan; the Kurdistan reserves of Barzan |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 6 — Hatra (1985); Ashur (2003); the Samarra archaeological city (2007) with its spiral minaret; the Erbil Citadel (2014), among the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth; the Ahwar of southern Iraq, the marshes and the cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu (2016); Babylon (2019) |
| Administrative divisions | 19 governorates since Halabja was made one in 2023 — Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh with Mosul and the rest — with Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja forming the autonomous Kurdistan Region under its own government at Erbil; Kirkuk disputed between them |
People
| Population | 45.4 million (census of 2024); about 46 million (2025 est.) |
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| Population density | About 105 per km² (270 per sq mi) — the deserts empty, the rivers crowded |
| Population growth | About 2.2% a year |
| Median age | About 22 years — about 60% under 25 |
| Life expectancy | About 72 years |
| Fertility rate | About 3.3 births per woman |
| Urban population | About 72% |
| Adult literacy | About 86% |
| Ethnic groups | Arab about 75–80%; Kurd about 15–20%, in the north; Turkmen about 3%, in Kirkuk and Tal Afar; Assyrians and Chaldeans, the Christians of Nineveh; Yazidis of Sinjar; Shabak, Kaka'i, Armenians, Circassians, the Marsh Arabs; no census by ethnicity since 1957 |
| Languages | Arabic by about 80%, in the Mesopotamian dialect; Kurdish by about 20%, the Sorani of Sulaymaniyah and the Kurmanji of Duhok; Turkmen; Neo-Aramaic in the villages of the plain; English in the universities |
| Religion | Muslim about 97% — Shia about 60–65%, in Baghdad and the south, the shrines of Najaf and Karbala the heart of Shia Islam; Sunni about 30–35%, the Arabs of the west and the Kurds; Christians about 250,000, from 1.5 million in 2003; Yazidis about 500,000, half of them fled after the genocide of 2014; Mandaeans, the last Gnostics, a few thousand |
| Human Development Index | 0.695 (2023 data, 2025 report) — medium; about 123rd of 193 |
| The dead and the displaced | The wars — the Iran–Iraq war, some 500,000 Iraqi dead; the sanctions of the 1990s and their children; the invasion and the civil war of 2003–11, at least 200,000 civilians dead by the Iraq Body Count; the Islamic State's years, the Yazidi genocide of 3 August 2014 and the mass graves; some 6 million displaced at the peak of 2016, a million still in 2026 |
| Sport | Football — the Lions of Mesopotamia, champions of Asia in 2007 in the darkest year, at the World Cup of 1986 and the Olympics of 2004; the Basra International Stadium; the Gulf Cup of 2023 hosted at last; weightlifting and boxing |
| Diaspora | About 4 million Iraqis abroad — in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, Britain, the United States and Australia; the Assyrians of Chicago and Sydney; the exiles of every regime since 1958 |
Government
| Form of government | Federal parliamentary republic under the Constitution of 2005 — the president a ceremonial head of state elected by parliament for four years, by convention a Kurd; the prime minister head of government, by convention a Shia Arab, named by the president from the largest bloc; the speaker a Sunni Arab; the muhasasa, the sharing of every post by sect |
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| President | Nizar Amidi (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), since 12 April 2026 — the tenth; an engineer from Amedi in the Duhok mountains, born 8 February 1968, an aide to Presidents Talabani and Masum, environment minister 2022–24, the PUK's man in Baghdad; elected 11 April 2026 in the second round with 227 votes to 15, the Kurdistan Democratic Party boycotting after its own candidate, the foreign minister Fuad Hussein, lost the first; "Iraq First," he told the chamber; succeeded Abdul Latif Rashid, who did not stand again |
| Prime Minister | Ali al-Zaidi (independent, for the Coordination Framework), since 14 May 2026 — a young billionaire of the Basra business world with no office held before, the compromise of the Framework after its months of deadlock; designated by the president 27 April 2026 and given the confidence of parliament on 14 May with 14 of his 23 ministers, the defense, interior, planning and higher-education posts among the nine left empty over the quarrels of Tehran's and Washington's partners; Fuad Hussein kept at foreign affairs |
| The 2025 election | Held 11 November 2025 for the Council of Representatives of 329: the Reconstruction and Development Coalition of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani first with 46 seats, the State of Law of Nouri al-Maliki and the Sadiqoun of Qais al-Khazali close behind, the Framework's parties together above 130; the Sunni Taqaddum of Mohammed al-Halbousi and the Kurdish KDP and PUK the rest; turnout 56%, up from 41% in 2021, with Muqtada al-Sadr's movement boycotting; women 26% of the seats, 9 for the minorities |
| The formation | Six months from the vote to the government — the Framework naming Maliki on 24 January 2026, the U.S. president calling him "a very bad choice" and threatening to cut support on 27 January, the deadlock through the war, the presidency settled 11 April and the premiership 14 May; the Kurdistan Region without a government of its own since its election of October 2024 |
| The war of 2026 | The U.S.–Israeli war with Iran from 28 February 2026 fought over and in Iraq — the Iran-backed militias' drones and rockets on the American bases, the embassies and the oil and power installations; the American and Israeli strikes on the militias, some of which killed Iraqi soldiers; Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz halting nearly all the oil exports on which the state lives; the ceasefire of early April; the government "neither able to protect its sovereignty nor to enforce the state's monopoly on force," in the Crisis Group's words; the Popular Mobilization Forces, the militias on the state payroll since 2014, the unresolved question |
| Parliament | The Council of Representatives — 329 members elected for four years by proportional representation in the 18 governorates, a quarter of the seats for women, 9 for Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Shabak and Feyli Kurds; the speaker, by convention Sunni, elected December 2025 |
| The next election | Due in 2029 |
| Kurdistan | The Kurdistan Region — autonomous since the no-fly zone of 1991 and by the Constitution of 2005, with its own parliament, government, peshmerga and oil; the independence referendum of 25 September 2017, 93% for, answered by Baghdad's seizure of Kirkuk; the KDP of the Barzanis at Erbil and the PUK of the Talabanis at Sulaymaniyah dividing it; the oil exports through Turkey stopped by arbitration in 2023 and restarted in 2025; Turkey's war on the PKK in its mountains |
| Legal system | Civil law on the French and Egyptian models with Islamic law for personal status; the Federal Supreme Court; the Kurdistan Region's courts; the death penalty, among the most used in the world |
| Governorates | 19 with elected councils, restored in December 2023 after four years; the four of Kurdistan under Erbil |
| The United States | The coalition against the Islamic State since 2014, its combat mission ended in 2021 and its withdrawal from Baghdad and Ain al-Asad agreed for September 2025, the remainder in Kurdistan to 2026; the strikes of 2026 on the militias; the dollar auctions and the sanctions on the banks; Soleimani and al-Muhandis killed at Baghdad airport on 3 January 2020 |
| United Nations | A founding member, 21 December 1945; UNAMI, the mission of 2003, wound down in 2025 |
| Memberships | The Arab League, a founder in 1945; OPEC, a founder in 1960 at the Baghdad conference; the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation; the Non-Aligned Movement; the WTO as an observer |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$260 billion (2025, IMF) — falling in 2026 with the exports halted |
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| GDP per capita | About US$5,600 (2025) |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$13,000 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 3% in 2025 on the oil price; the contraction of 2026 with the war and the closed Strait, the budget unpaid |
| Economy by sector | Oil about 40% of GDP, more than 90% of exports and government revenue; services about 45%; agriculture about 4%; the state the employer of 4 million |
| Currency | Iraqi dinar (IQD) |
| Oil | The fifth-largest reserves and the second producer of OPEC after Saudi Arabia — about 4.3 million barrels a day in 2025 from the fields of Rumaila, West Qurna and Majnoon around Basra, worked by BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil, CNPC and TotalEnergies under the contracts of 2009; the exports through the Basra terminals, nearly all of them halted when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in 2026; the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline through Turkey |
| Gas | The flaring of the associated gas, among the largest in the world, while the power plants import gas from Iran and the lights go out in the summer; the TotalEnergies deal of 2023 to capture it |
| Public finances | The budget of about US$150 billion a year for 2023–25, the largest in the country's history, three-quarters of it salaries and pensions for the public payroll; public debt about 50% of GDP; the dollar reserves of the central bank; the corruption — the "heist of the century" of US$2.5 billion from the tax authority in 2022 — the deepest problem, by every survey |
| Agriculture | Dates, wheat, barley and rice in the river valleys — the wheat harvest halved by the drought of 2021–22; the fish of the marshes; the country an importer of most of its food |
| Reconstruction | The Grand Faw port and the Development Road of highways and rail from the Gulf to Turkey, some US$17 billion, begun 2023; the housing of the Sudani years; the rebuilding of Mosul's old city and the al-Nuri mosque |
| Income classification | Upper-middle income (World Bank) |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airports | Baghdad International; Basra; Erbil, the gateway of Kurdistan; Sulaymaniyah; Najaf for the pilgrims; Mosul reopened 2025 |
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| Airline | Iraqi Airways, founded 1945 — the national carrier, its planes grounded by the sanctions of the 1990s and flying again since 2003; the EU ban on its flights lifted 2025 |
| Main ports | Umm Qasr on the Khor Abdullah, the country's port; Basra and the oil terminals of Basra and Khor al-Amaya; the Grand Faw port under construction, to be among the largest in the Middle East |
| Railways | About 2,300 km (1,430 mi) — the Baghdad–Basra line, the Baghdad Railway of the Germans and Ottomans reaching the city in 1940; the Development Road's 1,200 km line from Faw to the Turkish border planned; the Baghdad Metro of the plans |
| Roads | About 60,000 km (37,000 mi); the Baghdad–Basra and Baghdad–Amman highways; the checkpoints; the Development Road |
| The pilgrim road | Najaf to Karbala, 80 km walked by 20 million at Arbaeen each year — the largest gathering on earth |
History in dates
| c. 3500 BC | Uruk — the first city; writing, c. 3200 BC |
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| c. 2334 BC | Sargon of Akkad — the first empire |
| c. 1750 BC | Hammurabi's code at Babylon |
| c. 700 BC | The Assyrian empire at Nineveh; the library of Ashurbanipal |
| 539 BC | Cyrus takes Babylon |
| 636 | The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah — the Arab conquest |
| 680 | Karbala, 10 October — Husayn killed |
| 762 | Baghdad founded, 30 July — the Abbasid golden age |
| 1258 | The Mongols sack Baghdad, 13 February |
| 1534 | The Ottomans take Baghdad |
| 1917 | The British take Baghdad, 11 March |
| 1920 | The revolt against the Mandate |
| 1921 | Faisal I crowned, 23 August |
| 1927 | Oil at Baba Gurgur, Kirkuk, 14 October |
| 1932 | Independence, 3 October |
| 1958 | The revolution of 14 July — the royal family killed |
| 1968 | The Ba'ath coup, 17 July |
| 1979 | Saddam Hussein president, 16 July |
| 1980–1988 | The war with Iran |
| 1988 | Halabja gassed, 16 March; the Anfal campaign against the Kurds |
| 1990–1991 | Kuwait invaded, 2 August; the Gulf War; the uprisings crushed; the sanctions |
| 2003 | The invasion, 20 March; Baghdad falls, 9 April |
| 2006 | Saddam hanged, 30 December; the civil war |
| 2014 | The Islamic State takes Mosul, 10 June; Sinjar, 3 August |
| 2017 | Mosul retaken, 10 July; the caliphate declared defeated, 9 December; the Kurdish referendum, 25 September |
| 2019 | The October protests — some 600 dead |
| 2020 | Soleimani and al-Muhandis killed, 3 January |
| 2022 | Al-Sudani prime minister, 27 October |
| 2024 | The census, 20 November — the first since 1987 |
| 2025 | The election of 11 November |
| 2026 | The war over Iraq from 28 February; Amidi president, 12 April; al-Zaidi prime minister, 14 May |
Records & firsts
| The cradle of civilization | Uruk, the first city; the first writing; the wheel; the first law code |
|---|---|
| The fifth-largest oil reserves | About 145 billion barrels |
| The largest gathering on earth | Arbaeen at Karbala, some 20 million |
| Baghdad, once the largest city in the world | The Abbasid capital of the 9th century |
| Among the highest temperatures reliably measured | Basra, 53.9°C, 2016 |
| The first empire | Akkad, 2334 BC |
| The first census in 37 years | 2024 |
| The first mandate to end | Independence, 1932 |
| The founding of OPEC | Baghdad, 1960 |
| The Hanging Gardens | One of the seven wonders, if they were at Babylon |
| The Erbil Citadel | Among the oldest continuously inhabited places, 6,000 years |
| The marshes reborn | Drained to a tenth and refilled |
| The date palm | Thirty million trees once, the most in the world |
| Three wars in thirty years | 1980, 1991, 2003 — and the battleground of 2026 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Iraq?
The Republic of Iraq — Jumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq in Arabic, Komarî Êraq in Kurdish, its two official languages — a republic since the revolution of 14 July 1958 overthrew the Hashemite kingdom that Britain had installed in 1921 and that became independent on 3 October 1932. The name is older than Islam: al-Iraq in Arabic for the land of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, perhaps from the Sumerian Uruk, the first city, or from a word for the shore. To the Greeks it was Mesopotamia, "between the rivers," the cradle of civilization.
What is the capital of Iraq?
Baghdad, on the Tigris — founded by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 762 as the Round City, the largest city in the world and the seat of the House of Wisdom in its golden age, sacked by the Mongols in 1258; about 8 million people in the governorate, the second-largest city of the Arab world after Cairo. Basra on the Shatt al-Arab, the oil port and the hottest large city on earth, is the second with about 2.5 million; Mosul on the Tigris, destroyed and rebuilt after the Islamic State; Erbil, the Kurdish capital; Kirkuk of the oil; Najaf and Karbala of the shrines.
How big is Iraq, and how many people live there?
About 438,317 km² (169,235 sq mi) — about the size of California, a little larger than Sweden — from the Kurdish mountains of the north down the two rivers to the marshes and 58 km of coast on the Gulf, with the deserts of the west and south a third of the land. The census of November 2024, the first full count since 1987, found 45.4 million people; the UN estimates about 46 million for 2025, a population trebled since 1980 and among the youngest in the world, with the Kurdistan Region's six million counted within it.
What are the highest and lowest points of Iraq?
Cheekha Dar, 3,611 m (11,847 ft), on the Iranian border in the Zagros of Kurdistan, and the Persian Gulf. The Tigris and the Euphrates, rising in Turkey and joining at al-Qurnah to form the Shatt al-Arab, made the country and its civilization; the marshes where they meet, drained by Saddam and refilled after 2003, are the Mesopotamian wetlands of UNESCO's list, the Garden of Eden by the tradition, and the rivers themselves run at a fraction of their old flow behind the Turkish and Iranian dams.
What currency does Iraq use?
The Iraqi dinar (ISO code IQD, ID), issued by the Central Bank of Iraq — at the official rate of 1,310 to the U.S. dollar, fixed in 2023, with the street rate above it, and the U.S. dollar in wide use; the notes of Saddam's face replaced in 2003. Clocks keep Arabia Standard Time, UTC+3, all year.
Who governs Iraq?
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, a billionaire businessman with no political experience, confirmed by parliament on 14 May 2026 as the compromise candidate of the Coordination Framework of Shia parties after six months of deadlock — the American president having rejected the Framework's first choice, the former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, in January — with only 14 of his 23 ministers approved and the defense and interior ministries unfilled; and President Nizar Amidi of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the ceremonial head of state since 12 April 2026, elected by parliament with 227 votes under the convention that gives the presidency to a Kurd, the premiership to a Shia and the speakership to a Sunni. The election of 11 November 2025 gave Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's coalition the most seats, 46 of 329; the war of 2026 between the United States, Israel and Iran turned the country into a battleground of militias and airstrikes and halted its oil exports. The next election is due in 2029.
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