After thousands of years as a hunter/gatherer, man built the first cities 5,000 years ago on the banks of the Euphrates in Southern Iraq. Civilization began. City life transformed the human race with the glorious cultures of Mesopotamia such as Ur, and Babylon.
View Iraq - The Cradle of Civilization. Video hosted on Google. On the picture: Mosque built by Saddam Hussein on site of ancient Mosque of Ali Ibn Talib. It may be down right now, but this picturesque country's not out for the count.
The aftermath of war, severe food shortages, lawlessness and the lack of essential medicine throughout the country hamper the nation's chances of prosperity any time soon.
If you don't want to wilt, avoid summer in Iraq as it's fiercely hot (May to September); the average summer temperature in Baghdad is 34°C and in Basra 37°C, but daytime temperatures can soar well above that. The north is slightly cooler, while in the south there's debilitatingly high humidity. Winter can be cold and the mountains can become covered with snow. The average winter temperature in Baghdad is 11°C and in Basra 14°C.
It won't come as a surprise to too many people that Iraq isn't the best place for a holiday at the moment. The turbulent and extreme domestic situation makes Iraq one of the least desirable places in the world to be. Even if you wanted to go, chances are you'd have trouble getting there; there are only a few infrequent commercial carriers running flights to Baghdad's International Airport and only journalists, business people and aid workers are being issued visas.
Arabic, the official language, is spoken by 80% of the population The Kurds speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language. The Turkomans, who live in villages along the Baghdad to Mosul highway, speak a Turkish dialect. Persian is spoken by minorities near the Iranian border, while similar numbers speak Assyrian and Chaldean. English is quite widely spoken in urban centres.
The official religion is Islam. Muslims make up 95% of the population, with considerably more Shiites than Sunni. The Shiites tend to live in the south of the country, the Sunni in the central and northern districts.
The largest group of non-Muslims are Christians who belong to various sects, including Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrian and Roman Catholics, Orthodox Armenians and Jacobites. Other religious minorities are the Yezidis, often erroneously called devil worshippers, and the Sabaeans, or Mandeans, who are followers of John the Baptist.
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