'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎348v] (699/862)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS
542
left bank is the citadel (Qala) built on a walled tel or ruin-mound which
rises 130 feet above the plain. It contains a compact mass of flat-roofed
houses built of stone and juss mortar, divided by narrow alleyways; beyond
the walls the houses have spread on to the flat land by the river. The only
traffic-road skirts the town northwards from the bridge along the river bank.
The citadel contains several mosques, two arched bazaars, and a Christian
cathedral. The ‘new town’ or Qarwait Kalahiya on the right bank
is also closely built, but is penetrated by two main thoroughfares, the Fat-ha
road which runs west from near the bridge, and the road north-west to
Baba Gurgur, the headquarters of the oilfields. The modern buildings
in Qarwait Kalahiya include the Sarai, the Customs House, army and police
barracks and jail, two hotels and the Iraq club, schools and hospitals (civil
75 beds, jail 15 beds, isolation 15 beds). There is also a public library
and a bank. West of Qarwait Kalahiya, near the railway station, a new
quarter has arisen, containing the houses of officials and the I.P.C. head
quarters ; numerous hutments have been erected for workers and the town
continues to expand, but the main workshops, plant, and residential area
of the I.P.C. are in the ‘locations’ around Baba Gurgur, 4 miles to the
north-west, the starting-point of the Kirkuk pipe-line.
There is a municipal electric lighting plant (45 kW.), and water (un
chlorinated) is pumped from the Qadha Chai at a point 3 miles north-east
of the town to a tank of 15,000 gallons capacity 1 mile outside the town;
the I.P.C. locations have a separate installation at Dibis on the Little Zab
which provides chlorinated water up to 200,000 gallons a day.
Kirkuk stands among gardens, orchards of limes, olives, figs, apricots,
and vineyards. There are supplies of wheat, barley, fruit, and vegetables,
and some cotton is grown. The chief exports apart from petroleum are
wool, wheat, barley, fruit, gallnuts, and gum from the Qaradagh region,
and great numbers of sheep, goats, and cattle. But the chief occupations,
apart from oil production, are those of mercers and drapers, Kirkuk being
a distributing centre for Kurdistan. Woollen textiles, felt for coats, cotton
materials, and pottery are produced. There are also two ice plants and
five soda-water factories.
Communications
Rail: The town is the terminus of the metre-gauge railway from
Baghdad (Rly. 2).
Road: A tarmac road [6] north to Altun Kopru, Erbil, and Mosul
with an alternate unmetalled route west of the Kani Domlan to Altun
Kopru. Tarmac road [6] south by the Injana pass to Baghdad with an
alternative route by Jaloula and the Diyala. Tarmac road [8] east by
Chemchemal and the Bazian pass to Sulaimaniya and Penjwin. Un
metalled dry-weather road [14] parallel to the pipe-line west to Fat-ha,
Haditha, and Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan . There is a good road network round the oil
locations.