ABSTRACT
Physically Iraq is dominated by the valleys of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, the waters of which support its agriculture. To the east Iraq is separated from Iran by the Zagros range: to the west and south there is no clear physical separation from the plateaux and deserts of Syria and Arabia. In the north the Mosul region is carved from the contorted mass of mountains of eastern Asia Minor. In these areas the political boundaries of the state are not reinforced by nature. Nor are they endorsed by cultural distinctiveness: the Iraqi state which emerged in 1921 had a majority of Arabic speakers (80 per cent), the remainder being Kurds (15 per cent, principally in the north), Turkomans (especially in the Kirkuk region) and Persian speakers. More than 90 per cent of Iraq’s population of 3 million was Muslim but the Muslims were divided between Shrīs and Sunnīs in a ratio of 7:5. There was also a small but important Jewish population of 100,000 mainly resident in Baghdad. About 80 per cent of the population lived in the countryside; most of the cultivators accepted a tribal social structure but only about 10 per cent of the total population consisted of pure nomads. The remaining 20 per cent of the population lived in towns. The largest town was Baghdad with a population of about 200,000. Mosul and Basra were the only other towns of any size, the former with rather more than 50,000 inhabitants, the latter with rather less than that figure. About 5 per cent of the population was literate.
