Lower Mesopotamia is a

historical region History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. It is located in the

alluvial plain An alluvial plain is a plain (an essentially flat landform) created by the deposition of sediment over a long period by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A ''floodplain'' is part of the process, bei ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

from the

Hamrin Mountains The Hamrin Mountains (, ) are a small mountain ridge in northeast Iraq. The westernmost ripple of the Zagros Mountains, the Hamrin mountains extend from the Diyala Governorate bordering Iran, northwest to the Tigris river, crossing northern Sala ...

to the Faw Peninsula near the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

. In the Middle Ages it was also known as the '' Sawad'' and al-Jazira al-sflia ("Lower Jazira"), which strictly speaking designated only the southern alluvial plain, and Arab Iraq, as opposed to

Persian Iraq Persian Iraq, also uncommonly spelled Persian Irak ( ''Erāq-e Ajam'' or ''Erāq-e Ajami''; ''ʿIrāq al-ʿAjam'' or ''al-ʿIrāq al-ʿAjamī'', literally, "Iraq of the Ajam"), is a historical region of the western parts of Iran. The region, ...

, the

Jibal Jibāl (), also al-Jabal (), was the name given by the Arabs to a region and province located in western Iran, under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Its name means "the Mountains", being the plural of ''jabal'' ("mountain, hill"), highlight ...

. Lower Mesopotamia was home to

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

and

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

Delimitation

The medieval Arab geographers placed the northern border between Iraq and

Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the Upland and lowland, uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the regio ...

(the ''Jazirah'') in a line running from Anbar on the Euphrates to Tikrit on the

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

, although later it was shifted to a line running due west from Tikrit, thus including several towns on the Euphrates past Anbar into Iraq.

Geography

begins north of Tikrit Near

and extends to the

. Here the

and

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

lie above the level of the plain in many places, and the whole area is a

river delta A river delta is a landform, archetypically triangular, created by the deposition of the sediments that are carried by the waters of a river, where the river merges with a body of slow-moving water or with a body of stagnant water. The creat ...

interlaced by the channels of the two rivers and by qanat. Intermittent

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

s, fed by the rivers in flood, also characterize southeastern Iraq. A fairly large area () just above the confluence of the two rivers at al Qurnah and extending east of the Tigris beyond the Iranian border is marshland, known as Lake Hammar, the result of centuries of flooding and inadequate drainage. Much of it is permanent marsh, but some parts dry out in early winter, and other parts become marshland only in years of great flood. Because the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates above their confluence are heavily

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

-laden,

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

and fairly frequent flooding deposit large quantities of silty loam in much of the delta area. Windborne silt contributes to the total deposit of sediments. It has been estimated that the delta plains are built up at the rate of nearly twenty centimeters in a century. In some areas, major floods lead to the deposit in temporary lakes of as much as thirty centimeters of mud. The Tigris and Euphrates also carry large quantities of

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

s. These, too, are spread on the land by sometimes excessive irrigation and flooding. A high

water table The water table is the upper surface of the phreatic zone or zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with groundwater, which may be fresh, saline, or brackish, depending on the loc ...

and poor surface and subsurface drainage tend to concentrate the salts near the surface of the soil. In general, the salinity of the soil increases from Baghdad south to the Persian Gulf and severely limits productivity in the region south of

Amarah Amarah (), also spelled Amara, is a city in south-eastern Iraq, located on a low ridge next to the Tigris River waterway south of Baghdad about 50 km (31 mi) from the border with Iran. It lies at the northern tip of the marshlands between ...

. The

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

is reflected in the large lake in central Iraq, southwest of Baghdad, known as Lake Milh. There are two other major lakes in the country to the north of Lake Milh: Lake Tharthar and Lake Habbaniyah.

References

Sources

* {{Lands of the Eastern Caliphate * Geography of the Middle East Historical regions of Iraq

Delimitation

Geography

See also

References

Sources