'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎241r] (486/862)

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 357
tion. It is thus difficult to distinguish between urban and rural
elements. It is only at Baghdad that the occupations of the urban
population resemble at all closely those of a European city, i.e. com
merce, industry, and administration. Including those supported by
religious endowments, probably not more than 600,000 are entirely
urban in habit, or about one-sixth of the population.
The small towns are found in the Middle Euphrates, Upper
Euphrates, and Diyala regions and evenly spread through the four
northern provinces, particularly in the agricultural zones of the
Assyrian plains (fig. 62). But in the mountain valleys of the two
Zabs and of the Diyala the population, though never disseminated
in isolated farmhouses, is grouped in much smaller villages (p. 342).
Lack of local statistics prevent the detailed analysis of this pheno
menon which is most noticeable in the Middle Euphrates zone (Musai-
yib, Hindiya, Kifl, Diwaniya, Samawa, and other towns), and along
the Diyala (Baquba, Diltawa, Shahraban, and Delli Abbas). Thus
the present population repeats the tendency of the ancient Sumerians
and Akkadians to gather into small towns in these very areas.
Another constant factor in the urban organization of Iraq is the
presence of a great city at some point within the region where
Euphrates and Tigris approach most closely together and are linked
by canals. Before the effective unification of northern and southern Iraq
the great city was Babylon on the Euphrates, but since Seleucid times
it has been on the Tigris, consecutively at Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and
Baghdad, all within a circle of 55 miles. Originally, indeed, the Mos
lem capitals were on the Euphrates at Kufa and Anbar, but inconve
nience led to their early abandonment in favour of Baghdad (p. 243).
The later attempt to move the capital north of the delta to Samarra
was a failure (p. 244). The three capitals of the Assyrian plains,
Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk, have been similarly persistent (Chap. XII);
the break in the continuity between Assyrian Nineveh and the Sassa-
nid town which preceded Moslem Mosul (perhaps 800 years out of
4,000) being due to extraordinary political factors (p. 219).
Nomads. It has been remarked that there is no absolute distinction
between the settled peasantry and the shepherd nomads and that the
rural population is extremely mobile (p. 336). Likewise the agri
cultural and the pastoral regions are intermingled. But there are
certain great areas which are entirely given over to nomadism: the
Southern and Western Deserts and the Jazira away from the immediate
vicinity of the rivers and Jabal Sinjar; the drier lands between the
Hilla canal and the Tigris, except along the Shatt al Gharraf; and
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