Iraq 🇮🇶

Iraq is a country in Western Asia, one of the 17 entries this site files under that subregion. The long form of the name is Republic of Iraq. The capital is Baghdad.

Its territory runs to 438,317 km², which ranks it 60th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Morocco and just ahead of Paraguay. For scale, it is almost exactly the same size as Morocco.

Some 46.0 million people call it home, placing it 34th of 249 by population — between Algeria above it and Argentina below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 4th of 17 in size and 2nd in population.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 33.0° N, 44.0° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 3,674 km from the equator, in what geographers would call subtropical latitudes.

China, Morocco and Tunisia sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

6 countries share a land border with it: Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Türkiye. The largest of them by area is Saudi Arabia, while the most populous is Iran. Together those neighbours hold about 253.5 million people.

With both a coast and land borders, it has the trade options a landlocked country does not.

Density comes out at around 105 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

3 languages carry official status: Arabic, Aramaic and Sorani. Aramaic and Sorani are listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes them effectively unique to Iraq. Arabic, the first listed, is shared with 24 other entries worldwide.

The demonym is Iraqi, so residents are Iraqis.

Inside Asia it places 14th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 15% of everyone living in Western Asia.

Zoom in from the world to Western Asia and Iraq sits 2nd of 17 by population and 4th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Türkiye just above and Yemen just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Türkiye is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Western Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇹🇷 Türkiye
• 🇾🇪 Yemen
• 🇹🇷 Türkiye

The Iraqi dinar (IQD) is used only in Iraq among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. Arabic is listed for 25 entries here, Iraq among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Iraq ranks 60th of 249 by area and 34th by population. That works out at 0.29% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 0.57% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Iraq in the size ordering are Morocco at 446,550 km² and Paraguay at 406,752 km², against Iraq's 438,317 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Iraq averages 105 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 110th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

It uses the Iraqi dinar (ع.د, IQD). It is issued for Iraq alone.

The top-level domain is .iq. Calls from overseas start with +964. In ISO terms it is iq in two letters and IRQ in three.

If a quiz asks for the capital of Iraq, the answer is Baghdad.

Iraq is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.