Iraq,[a] 

officially the Republic of Iraq,[b] is a country in Western

Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east,
the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the
south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west.
The capital and largest city is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse
ethnic groups including Iraqi
Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandae
ans, Persians and Shabakis with similarly
diverse geography and wildlife. The vast majority of the country's
44 million residents are Muslims – the notable other faiths
are Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism and Zoroastria
nism.[12][2] The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish;
others also recognised in specific regions are Neo-
Aramaic, Turkish and Armenian.[13]
Starting as early as the 6th millennium BC, the fertile alluvial
plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, referred to
as Mesopotamia, gave rise to some of the world's
earliest cities, civilisations, and empires, including those
of Akkad, Babylon, Assyria and Sumer.[14] Mesopotamia was a
"Cradle of Civilisation" that saw the independent development of
a writing system, mathematics, timekeeping,
a calendar, astrology, and a law code.[15][16][17] Following the Muslim
conquest of Mesopotamia, Baghdad became the capital and the
largest city of the Abbasid Caliphate, and during the Islamic
Golden Age, the city evolved into a significant cultural and
intellectual center, and garnered it a worldwide reputation for its
academic institutions, including House of Wisdom.[18] The city was
largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258
during the Siege of Baghdad, resulting in a decline that would
linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and
multiple successive empires.