ABSTRACT
There are only three cities in Iraq which are of any size by European standards. These are the capital Baghdad with a population of about 300,000, Mosul, sometimes called the capital of the north, and the group of small towns collectively known as Basra, which is the sole port. These three are described in some detail in alphabetical order. The Gazetteer which follows contains briefer descriptions of the small country towns, ‘holy cities’, and places of administrative or economic importance, throughout the country, some of them being large villages rather than towns (p. 356). All information about numbers of inhabitants is extremely uncertain, and depends upon estimates made by local officials at different dates during the last ten years; it is intended simply as a general guide to comparative sizes. Material for the compilation of town plans is extremely inadequate except for Baghdad; hence these have been limited to Baghdad, Mosul, Erbil, Karbala, and the port of Basra.
