Baghdad
Iraq's capital on the Tigris, a former center of learning
Baghdad spreads along both banks of the Tigris River, a capital of nearly eight million that once stood at the very center of the medieval world. Founded as the round city of the Abbasid caliphs, it was for centuries the largest and most learned metropolis on Earth, a place of libraries, astronomers, and translators. Decades of war and upheaval have scarred it since, yet it remains the beating heart of Iraq, its markets, mosques, and riverside cafes still crowded with life.
The city sits on the flat alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, where the Tigris divides it into the eastern Rusafa and western Karkh districts. The surrounding terrain is hot and arid, baked by ferocious summers and watered chiefly by the river and ancient irrigation, the same conditions that made this one of the cradles of agriculture and civilization. Date palms and irrigated farmland line the river's edge.
The caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad in 762 as the capital of the Abbasid empire, and within a generation it became the world's greatest city, home to the House of Wisdom where Greek, Persian, and Indian knowledge was gathered and advanced. The Mongol sack of 1258 ended that golden age, and the city passed through Ottoman and British hands before becoming capital of independent Iraq. Its recent history has been turbulent, but Baghdad endures as the country's political, cultural, and economic center.