Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital and largest city of Iraq, situated along the Tigris River in the central part of the country. With an estimated population of 8 million, it is one of the most populous and largest cities in both the Middle East and the Arab world, accounting for roughly 22% of Iraq’s total population. The city serves as a major financial and commercial hub for the region.

The city was founded in 762 AD by al-Mansur on a site that had been inhabited since at least the Neo-Babylonian period. It became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and its most significant development project. Baghdad grew into a center of intellectual and cultural life, home to key academic institutions like the House of Wisdom and a population that was multi-ethnic and multi-religious. This earned it a global reputation as the “Center of Learning.”

During much of the Abbasid era, which coincided with the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad was among the largest cities in the world, rivaling Chang'an, with a peak population of over one million. The Mongol Empire largely destroyed the city in 1258, triggering a long decline marked by frequent plagues and shifting power among successive empires. Later, Baghdad became the administrative center of Ottoman Iraq, overseeing the provinces of Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor.

After the First World War, Baghdad was made the capital of Mandatory Iraq. When Iraq gained recognition as an independent monarchy in 1932, the city gradually recovered some of its former status as an important center of Arab culture. Under Ba'ath Party rule, Baghdad experienced a period of relative prosperity and growth. However, the Iraq War, which began with the 2003 invasion, caused severe infrastructural damage and led to a substantial loss of cultural heritage and historical artifacts. During the insurgency and renewed conflict from 2013 to 2017, the city had one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks in the world. These attacks have since declined following the territorial defeat of the Islamic State militant group in Iraq in 2017 and are now rare. Since the war ended, numerous reconstruction projects have been underway to promote stability.

As Iraq’s largest city, Baghdad is the seat of government and generates 40% of the country’s economy. A major center of Islamic history, it is home to many historic mosques, as well as churches, mandis, and synagogues, reflecting its historical diversity. Religious sites such as Masjid al-Kadhimayn, Buratha Mosque, the Shrine of Abdul-Qadir Gilani, and Abu Hanifa Mosque attract millions of visitors each year. The city was once home to a large Jewish community and is regularly visited by Sikh pilgrims from India. Baghdad is also a regional cultural hub, well known for its coffeehouses.

The name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, and its origin is disputed. The site of the city has been populated for millennia, with archaeological evidence showing occupation long before the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in 637 CE. Several ancient empires had their capitals in the surrounding area. Arab authors, recognizing the pre-Islamic roots of the name, often looked for its origins in Middle Persian.

They suggested various meanings, the most common being “bestowed by God.” Modern scholars generally favor this etymology, viewing the word as a Persian compound of bagh (“god”) and dād (“given”). In Old Persian, the first element traces back to boghu and is related to Indo-Iranian bhag and Slavic bog (“god”). A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt (Mehrdad in New Persian), known in English as Mithridates, meaning “Given by Mithra.”

Other locations with names compounded from Middle Persian bagh include Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran, and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same Iranic origins.

Some authors have proposed older origins, such as the name Bagdadu or Hudadu in Old Babylonian, and the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic name Baghdatha. A later attestation appears on a boundary stone from the reign of Merodach-baladan I (12th century BC), written in cuneiform as Bag-da-du. Others have suggested Aramaic derivations. Another view holds that Baghdad refers to Bagh and Dad, as in Dadan, Dedan, and Hadad or Adad. Christophe Wall-Romana proposed that the name derives from “Akkad,” since the cuneiform logogram for Akkad is pronounced “a-ga-dèKI” (“Agade”), and its resemblance to “Baghdad” is compelling. He argues that across all spellings—Baghdad, Baghdadh, Baghdan, Maghdad, Maghdadh, or Maghdan—the only phonetically definite segment is “Aghda,” which could match the pronunciation of Agade.

When the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name “City of Peace,” which now refers to the Round City of Baghdad proper. By the 11th century, Baghdad had become almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis. Wall-Romana also suggested that al-Mansur’s choice to found his new city at Baghdad, due to its strategic location, was influenced by the same criteria that led Sargon to found the original city of Akkad on the exact same site.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the site of Baghdad was occupied before its Abbasid foundation.