the Iraq Republic - the Arabian state in Southwest Asia, in Mesopotamia. Bounds with Kuwait , Saudi Arabia , Jordan , Syria , Iran and Turkey . From the southeast it is flowed about by Persian gulf. The square - 444 thousand sq. km. The population - 19,4 million persons. Capital - Bagdad.
Iraq - the country mainly flat. The central part is occupied by Mesopotamic lowland (mezhdureche the Tiger and Euphrates), the northeast - spurs of a mountain of Zagros mountains, and the south and the southeast - an ancient Arabian block.
Iraq, as well as many neighbouring countries of Southwest Asia, - one of the earliest nucleation sites for of cultural development of mankind. Here parking drevnekamennogo (cave SHanidar in the Iraq Kurdistan) and novokamennogo (settlements Dzharmo, Hassuna, etc.) have been detected centuries. The Mesopotamic lowland already in an antiquity was considered as a barn of extensive region of Asia. In terrain of Iraq there were such powerful states of an antiquity, as Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, etc.
the Ethnic composition of Iraq is rather unimodal. Approximately 80 % population Arabs, 18 % - Kurds, and also persians, Turks, Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmans, etc. Some part of Arabs and Kurds saves pedigree division. In the country numbers more than hundred nomadic, seminomadic and nonmigratory nations.
Overwhelming majority of the population of Iraq (96 %) - Moslems shiitskogo and sunnitskogo rumours, 3 % - christians, 1 % - jezidy, mandejtsy, iudaisty. In Iraq there are two sacred cities shiitov - En-Nadzhaf and Kerbela where tombs shiitskih imams were saved and where make pilgrimage shiity all world.
A national economy Basis - a petroleum industry.
At cities bunks nearby 60 population %. The largest city - capital of Iraq - Bagdad (3,8 million inhabitants). Other large industrial cities - Basra, Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk.
