Geography > Population of Iraq

Population of Iraq

By Mustafa Dhia and

Dhia Younis

Editing Maha Aldoori

26 August 2009

The region previously known as the “Land between the two rivers,”1 Iraq, became a sovereign state in 1932, when it became independent of a British mandate.14 At the formation of this state, the population was reported as 3.44 million people.2Baghdad alone made up 9.6% of the republic's populate with the count of 358,840.3 Since it's founding to 2009, Iraq's total population has reached almost ten times the original at 28.94 million inhabitants.4 Each year from 1932 through 2009, the population has increased except for the period between 1999 to 2000. During this time where there was a loss of a little over 120,000 people (specific factors to be delineated in a different article). Rank-wise, Iraq is the 4^th highest populate out of the 16 countries within the Middle East.5 World-wide, Iraq places 40^th out of all countries listed in the references reviewed below.6 Interestingly, the census of Iraq in 1977 to 1987 (Iraqi government sponsored), stated that Iraq had the highest growth rate, ranging from 2.8% to 3.5% annually.But now Iraq’s population growth rate is 2.66%. Being that as it may (the lower growth rate compared to its recent history), the Cradle of Civilization still continues to grow rapidly relatively speaking, as overall world growth rate is about 1.14%. The estimated doubling time for Iraq is 70 divided by 2.66 = 26 years.15

Today, Baghdad is the second largest city both in the Arab world (the largest being Cairo, Egypt) and in Southwest Asia (first being Tehran, Iran). Iraq has a large percentage of people being in the young age group (see chart).

Iraq is home to a number of ethnic groups besides the Arabic speaking Iraqis, Kurds (traditional dress in Figure 2), Turkmen (Gratitude to anybody for: a picture of any Iraqi ethnicity in traditional costume), and Assyrians are a few. Other ethnicities include Armenians, Persians, Shabaks, and Lurs. The Semitic Iraqis today can be considered Mesopotamian people, throughmany generations of ancestry.7,8 More specifically this dates back to 2340 BC whence the Akkadians, who were Semitic people from the Arabian Peninsula, migrated north into Mesopotamia.9 According to the CIA Factbook, Arabs constitute about 75–80% of the total population of Iraq. The Kurds, a mostly Islamic non-Arab people, are the largest and most significant minority group, comprising 15–20% of Iraq's population. The rest of the 5% of minorities include Turkmen, residing mainly in the northeast and the Kirkuk region; Yazidis mostly situated in the Sinjar Mountains. The Assyrians and Armenians are scattered in the larger cities and northeastern rural areas. The ethnicities are broken down as follows: Arabs 77%; Kurds 19%; Azerbaijani/Turkmen 2%; Persian 2%; Assyrian 0.8% of Iraq's population.13

Arabic is the primary language. Other distinctive spoken and written languages include Kurdish, Turkish dialectic Arabic, Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic), and Armenian are other distinctive languages of Iraq.10

Ninety seven per cent of Iraq are followers of Islam11, which is split into 2 main sects, 60% Shiite Muslims and 37% Sunni Muslims. The remaining 3% is a mix of Christians, Jews, and a number of other beliefs (Yazdanism & Mandaeism).12

Note: The numbers and figures of the demographics of this layout are based on official censuses of different sources. As such the data may differ with other references.

The following articles will have more detail for each ethnicity.

• Arabs (article pending)
• Kurds (article pending)
• Assyrians (article pending)
• Turkmen (article pending)
• Armenians (article pending)
• Shabaks (article pending)
• Persians (article pending)
• Lurs (article pending)
• Others (article pending)

Notes and References: