It is bordered by Turkey to the north , Saudi Arabia to the south , Iran to the east , Syria to the west , the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast , and Jordan to the southwest. With a population exceeding 45 million, it is the 35th-most populous country, with the largest city being Baghdad , its capital , and consists of 18 governorates.
Iraqi people are diverse; mostly Arabs , as well as Kurds , Turkmen , Yazidis , Assyrians , Armenians , Mandaeans , Persians and Shabakis with similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Starting as early as the 6th millennium BC , the fertile alluvial plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, referred to as the region of Mesopotamia , gave rise to some of the world's earliest cities , civilizations , and empires.
It was known as 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 , Baghdad became the capital and the largest city of the Abbasid Caliphate.
During the time of the Islamic Golden Age , the city evolved into a significant cultural and intellectual center, and garnered a worldwide reputation for its academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom. Since its independence, Iraq has experienced spells of significant economic and military growth alongside periods of instability and conflict. The Ba'ath Party came to power in and ruled as one-party state , under the leadership of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and then by Saddam Hussein , who started major wars against Iran and Kuwait.
The war subsequently turned into an insurgency and sectarian civil war , with American troops withdrawing in Between and , Iraq was once more in a state of war, with the rise and subsequent fall of Islamic State. Today post-war conflict in Iraq continues at a lower scale, which has been an obstacle to the country's stability alongside the rising influence of Iran.
