Baghdad is the capital and largest city in Iraq. It is located on the banks of the Tigris in central Iraq. The city has an estimated population of 8 million. It ranks among the most populous and largest cities in the Middle East and the Arab world and constitutes 22% of Iraq's population. Baghdad is a primary financial and commercial center in the region.
Founded in 762 AD by al-Mansur on a site with settlement dating back to at least the Neo-Babylonian period, Baghdad became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and its most notable development project. The city evolved into an intellectual and cultural center. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". For much of the Abbasid era, during the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world and rivaled Chang'an, as the population peaked at more than one million. It was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger for many centuries due to frequent plagues and shifts in power between multiple successive empires. Later, Baghdad served as the administrative center of Ottoman Iraq, exercising authority over the provinces of Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor.
During the First World War, Baghdad was made the capital of Mandatory Iraq. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent monarchy in 1932, it gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arab culture. During the Ba'ath Party rule, the city experienced a period of relative prosperity and growth. However, it faced severe infrastructural damage due to the Iraq War, which began with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, resulting in a substantial loss of cultural heritage and historical artifacts. During the insurgency and renewed war from 2013 to 2017, it had one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks in the world. However, these attacks have gradually declined since the territorial defeat of the Islamic State militant group in Iraq in 2017, and are now rare. Since the end of the war, numerous reconstruction projects have been underway to induce stability.
Iraq's largest city, Baghdad is the seat of government. It generates 40% of the economy of Iraq. A major center of Islamic history, Baghdad is home to numerous historic mosques, as well as churches, mandis and synagogues, highlighting the city's historical diversity. Religious sites such as Masjid al-Kadhimayn, Buratha Mosque, the Shrine of Abdul-Qadir Gilani and Abu Hanifa Mosque are visited by millions of people annually. It was once home to a large Jewish community and was regularly visited by Sikh pilgrims from India. Baghdad is a regional cultural hub. The city is well known for its coffeehouses.
The name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, and its origin is disputed. The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows that the site of Baghdad was occupied long before the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in 637 CE, and that several ancient empires had their capitals located in the surrounding area.
Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name, generally looked for its roots in Middle Persian. They suggested various meanings, the most common of which was "bestowed by God". Modern scholars generally tend to favor this etymology, which views the word as a Persian compound of bagh () "god" and dād () "given". In Old Persian the first element can be traced 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 by its borrowed Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning "Given by Mithra" (dāt is the more archaic form of dād, related to Sanskrit dāt, Latin dat and English donor). There are a number of other locations whose names are compounds of the Middle Persian word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran, and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same etymological Iranic origins.
Other authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian (spelled with a sign that can represent both bag and hu), and the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic name of a place called Baghdatha (בגדתא). A later attestation of the name is found in a boundary stone from the reign of Merodach-baladan I (12th century BC), where it appears in cuneiform as Bag-da-du.
Some scholars suggested Aramaic derivations.
Another highly recommended view is that Baghdad is a reference to Bagh and Dad as in Dadan, Dedan, and Dad as in Hadad, Adad. Another view suggested by Christophe Wall-Romana, is that name of "Baghdad" is derived from "Akkad", as the cuneiform logogram for Akkad (𒀀𒂵𒉈𒆠) is pronounced "a-ga-dèKI" ("Agade") and its resemblance to "Baghdad" is compelling. It is argued that, throughout all the various spellings of the city's name, whether Baghdad [بغداد], Baghdadh [بغداذ], Baghdan [بغدان], Maghdad [مغداد], Maghdadh [مغداذ], or Maghdan [مغدان], the only phonetically definite segment of the name appears to be Aghda [ىَغْدَا], which could be equated with the pronunciation of the name Agade.
When the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name "City of peace" (Arabic: مدینة السلام, romanized: Madīnat as-Salām), which now refers to the Round City of Baghdad proper. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis.
Christophe Wall-Romana has suggested that al-Mansur's choice to found his "new city" at Baghdad because of its strategic location was the same criteria which influenced Sargon's choice to found the original city of Akkad in the exact same location.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the site of Baghdad had been occupied prior to its Abbasid foundation. An extensive facing of Neo-Babylonian brickwork has been identified along the western bank of the Tigris at Baghdad, with bricks stamped with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar II. Assyrian geographical catalogues during the reign of Sardanapalus from the Neo-Assyrian period record a place whose name was very similar to “Baghdad”, which likely refers to the town standing on the site where the Abbasids would later build their capital.
After the fall of the Umayyads, the victorious Abbasids sought a new capital. On 30 July 762, the Caliph Al-Mansur commissioned Baghdad's construction, guided by the Iranian Barmakids. He believed Baghdad was ideal for ruling the Islamic Empire. Historian al-Tabari recorded a prophecy from Christian monks about a leader named Miklas building a great city in the area, and Al-Mansur, who was once called Miklas, saw this as a good omen. He expressed deep affection for the site, declaring it would be the home of his dynasty. The two designers who were hired by Al-Mansur to plan the city's design were Naubakht, a Zoroastrian who also determined that the date of the foundation of the city would be astrologically auspicious, and Mashallah, a Jew from Khorasan, Iran. They determined the city's auspicious founding date under the sign of Leo the lion, symbolizing strength and expansion.
The city's layout consisted of two large semicircles, with a 2 km-wide circular core known as the "Round City." It had parks, gardens, villas, and promenades. Unlike European cities of the time, Baghdad had a sanitation system, fountains, and public baths, with thousands of hammams enhancing hygiene. The mosque and guard headquarters stood at the center, though some central space's function remains unknown. Baghdad's circular design reflected ancient Near Eastern urban planning, similar to the Sasanian city of Gur and older Mesopotamian cities like Mari. While Tell Chuera and Tell al-Rawda also provide examples of this type of urban planning existing in Bronze Age Syria. This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.