Geography

irag, the cradle of civilization, is situated in the northeast of the great Arab homeland of which it is an important part. It lies to the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula, itself part of South-West Asia of which Iraq is an extension, because of their similar geophysical structures. Irag is in the southern part of the North Temperate Zone between latitudes 29.5-37.25 and longitudes 38.45-45.48. It has an area of 438,446 square kilometres which includes the 18 governorates. In the central part, astride the Tigris, lies the great capital of Harun Al- Rashid, Baghdad. Iraq is bounded on the North by Turkey, on the West by Syria and Jordan, on the South by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab Gulf and on the East by Iran. Because of its geographical position, it has been a bridge between three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, and between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. It is therefore, the shortest land route between Europe and South-East Asia. The country can be divided roughly into three regions: the mountainous snow-clad north and north-east, about 20 per cent of the whole country, a central largely limestone plateau representing 59.5 per cent of the whole, and the southern flat lowland alluvial plain, with many lakes and marshes. Two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, traverse the country from north to south: their sources are in the far away uplands of Armenia and Anatolia, and they are fed by many tributaries, which makes Iraq notable for its rich water resources. The two rivers meet in the Shatt-Al-Arab, which runs through Basrah Governorate in the south to pour in the Arabian Gulf. The Tigris is 1,718 kilometres long, of which 1,418 are in Iraq. The Euphrates is 2,300 kilometres long, of which 1,213 are in Iraq. The Shatt-Al-Arab, from the two rivers confluence to the Arabian Gulf, is 110 kilometres long. Irag has a population of over 14 million, of which the majority are Arabs. There are several minorities which enjoy full national and cultural rights within the overall national framework of the Iraq Republic. Freedom to practise their religious rites is protected by law for all religious denominations, and their major feast days are official holidays for them. The official language is Arabic, but there are also other officially recognized languages: Kurdish, Turkoman and Syriac. The foreign language most widely used is English.

Source: Iraq Tourist Guide 1982