Iraq

Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in the Middle East. It is a federal parliamentary republic that consists of 19 governorates. The country is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital and largest city is Baghdad. The Iraqi people are diverse, with similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Most Iraqis are Muslims – minority faiths include Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish; others also recognised in specific regions are Turkish (Turkmen), Suret (Assyrian), and Armenian. Iraq is the 33rd most-populous country in the world. Starting as early as the 6th millennium BC, the fertile alluvial plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, referred to as Mesopotamia, gave rise to some of the world's earliest cities, civilisations, and empires in Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria. Mesopotamia was a "Cradle of Civilisation" that saw the inventions of a writing system, mathematics, timekeeping, a calendar, astrology, and a law code. Following the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia, Baghdad became the capital and the largest city of the Abbasid Caliphate, and during the Islamic Golden Age, the city evolved into a significant cultural and intellectual centre, and garnered it a worldwide reputation for its academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258 during the siege of Baghdad, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. Modern Iraq dates to 1920, when the British Mandate for Mesopotamia was created under the authority of the League of Nations. A British-backed monarchy was established in 1921 under Faisal. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from the UK in 1932. In 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was ruled by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party from 1968 until 2003, led by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and then by Saddam Hussein, as a one-party state. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, sparking a protracted war that ended as a stalemate in 1988, with devastating losses for both sides. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to global condemnation and a military campaign waged by US-led international coalition that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait.