"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎٢‎٣‎٨] (٨٦٢/٤٨١)

CHAPTER VII .
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION
I n Moslem countries, particularly those that have been under Otto
man rule, the population seeks to avoid registration and census
because they are the prelude to conscription and taxation, and the
officials tend to rely on estimates made by the local administration or
by the shaikhs themselves. It is only when the people begin to
realize that benefits in the form of schools, agricultural relief, and
irrigation schemes may follow the accumulation of statistics that
these begin to be reliable. The data for Iraq have been greatly influ
enced by these tendencies. In certain divisions of the country, parti
cularly the Kurdish provinces and those of the Middle Euphrates
region, there has been remarkable fluctuation in the estimates pub
lished between 1930 and 1943. In other parts of the country, which
have had a less turbulent history, the figures show less variation,
particularly when the administrative provinces are grouped in their
natural units. It would seem that in 1935 and in 1943 more effective
counts were made than had hitherto been possible and that these
figures may be taken as a rough guide to the size of the population;
in two provinces', Sulaimaniya and Diwaniya, the 1935 estimate may
be more reliable than that for 1943, and in a third, Baghdad, the 1943
figure shows avast increase which has not yet been explained (p. 360).
General Distribution
The 1943 estimate gave the total population of Iraq as nearly 4 mil
lions, and it appears that of these, as in 1935* some 90 per cent, were
actually registered, and that the remainder were administrative esti
mates from the reports of local officials. But all statistics in this chapter
must he regarded with great caution.
The provincial totals in 1943, taken to the nearest thousand, were
as follows; figures in brackets are for 1935:
Population in thousands
Mosul
• 5°9
Diwaniya
. 292 (4 16 )
Erbil
. 201
Hilla
. 225
Kirkuk
• 233
Karbala .
• 133
Sulaimaniya
. 142 (184)
Kut
. 152
Baghdad .
• 927 ( 499 )
Amara
280
Diyala
. 218
Muntafiq
. 230
Dulaim
• 131
Basra
. 321
Total
3 . 995 ,° 00