"كتيّب بلاد الرافدين. المجلد I. ١٩١٨" [‎٨‎٧] (٥٦٨/٩٦)

CHAPTER VII
INHABITANTS
Numbers and distribution of population—Movement of population—Ethno
graphy (Arabs—Luis—Kurds—Other groups)—Principal languages—Education.
Numbers and Distribution op Population
There are no exact statistics of the population of this area; in
fact the estimates that were made before the war were only more or
less rough guesses, and sometimes they conflict with each other in
a remarkable way.
As a rule the recorded estimates seem to be too high, and some of
the exaggerations appear to be very gross.
The following estimates may perhaps be worth giving, but may be
very wide of the truth :
Irak (Basra and Baghdad vilayets) . About a million souls. 1
Arabistan, Behbehan, and the Persian^
Highlands (including the Kuhgalu and A few hundred thousand
Bakhtiyari countries, Pusht-i-Kuh, and Isouls, probably not more
the western half of the province of
Kirmanshah)
Upper Mesopotamia, with southern
Turkish Kurdistan, central Kurdistan
south of the Tigris—Lake Van water
shed, and the country north of Diarbekr
up to the line of the eastern Taurus
Total . . . .
than half a million.
About a million souls, or
perhaps somewhat less.
Perhaps between two and
two and a half millions.
^ Between 1900 and 1908 the population of Irak was estimated at various
figures between a million and a half and three millions. Accoiding to the
Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf (1908) it probably amounted to '1.500,000 souls or
rather more including a very small proportion of Bedawis. The total number
of the settled and semi-nomadic population was given by the same authority as
1,480,000. This estimate had been ' compiled, district by district, from informa
tion collected for the .. . Gazetteer
But a census taken at Basra in July 1916 showed that the estimate given in