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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Figure 6. Estimated Population Distributio by Age and Sex, 1987
Although a census occurred in late 1987, only overall
population totals and some estimates were available in early
1988. The latest detailed census information was that from the
1977 census. The total population increased from 12,029,000 in
1977 to 16,278,000 in 1987, an increase of 35.3 pecent.
The population has fluctuated considerably over the region's
long history. Between the eighth and the twelfth centuries A.D.,
Iraq--particularly Baghdad--was the flourishing center of a
burgeoning Arab civilization, and at the height of the region's
prosperity it may have supported a population much larger than
the present society. Some estimates range as high as 15 to 29
million. Decline came swiftly in the late thirteenth century,
however, when Mongol conquerors massacred the populace, destroyed
the cities, and ravaged the countryside. The elaborate irrigation
system that had made possible agricultural production capable of
supporting a large population was left in ruins.
A pattern of alternating neglect and oppression characterized
the Ottoman rule that began in the sixteenth century, and for
hundreds of years the three vilayets of Baghdad, Al
Basrah, and Mosul--which the British joined to form Iraq in the
aftermath of World War I--remained underpopulated backward
outposts of the Ottoman Empire. In the mid-1800s, the area had
fewer than 1.3 million inhabitants.
Upon independence in 1932, the departing British officials
estimated the population at about 3.5 million. The first census
was carried out in 1947, showing a population of about 4.8
million. The 1957 census gave a population of about 6.3 million,
and the 1965 census returned a count of slightly above 8 million.
The October 1977 census gave the annual rate of population
growth as 3.2 percent. According to the October 1987 census, the
annual population growth rate was 3.1 percent placing Iraq among
the world's high population growth rate countries (2.8 to 3.5 per
year). In common with many developing countries, Iraq's
population was young: approximately 57 percent of the population
in 1987 was under the age of twenty. The government has never
sought to implement a birth control program, a policy reinforced
by the war to offset losses in the fighting and mitigate the
threat from Iran, whose population is roughly three times that of
Iraq.
In 1977 about 64 percent of the population was listed as
living in urban areas; this was a marked change from 1965, when
only 44 percent resided in urban centers. In the 1987 government
estimates, the urban population was given as 68 percent,
resulting in large measure from the migrations to the cities
since the start of the war. The partial destruction of Basra by
Iranian artillery barrages has had a particularly devastating
effect; by 1988, according to some well informed accounts, almost
half the residents of the city--its population formerly estimated
at 800,000--had fled. At the same time, approximately 95,000
persons were identified in the 1977 census as nomadic or
seminomadic beduins. This figure is a 1986 estimate by
nongovernmental sources and is higher than the 57,000 listed in
the 1957 census; the increase probably reflects either an
improved counting procedure or a change in definition or
classification. Overall, the nomads and seminomads constituted
less than 1 percent of the population, whereas in 1867 they had
been estimated at about 500,000 or 35 percent of the population.
The population remains unevenly distributed. In 1987 Baghdad
Governorate had a population density of about 950 persons per
square kilometer and the Babylon Governorate 202 persons per
square kilometer, whereas Al Muthanna Governorate possessed only
5.5 persons per square kilometer. In general the major cities are
located on the nation's rivers, and the bulk of the rural
population lives in the areas that are cultivated with water
taken from the rivers.
Data as of May 1988
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