Ancient Cities of Iraq
A bucket list of Mesopotamia's foundational ancient cities, spanning Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Abbasid civilizations across the land between the Tigris and Euphrates.
Trip Stops
- 1
Home to the legendary Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the towering Etemenanki ziggurat believed to have inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. Its famous blue-glazed Ishtar Gate was dismantled and rebuilt in Berlin's Pergamon Museum, though a full-scale replica now stands at the site.
📍 Hillah, Babil, Iraq
- 2
Birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham according to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, and home to a massive ziggurat built around 2100 BC that still stands nearly intact today. Royal tombs excavated here in the 1920s revealed spectacular gold jewelry alongside the remains of attendants who appear to have accompanied their ruler into the afterlife.
📍 Nasiriyah, Dhi Qar, Iraq
- 3
Widely considered the world's first true city, with a population that may have reached 40,000 at its peak around 3100 BC, making it the largest urban center on Earth at the time. It's also the legendary home of King Gilgamesh, hero of the world's oldest surviving epic poem, and the likely birthplace of writing itself.
📍 Samawah, Muthanna, Iraq
- 4
Once the largest city in the world and capital of the mighty Neo-Assyrian Empire, home to King Ashurbanipal's famous library, which held over 30,000 cuneiform tablets including the earliest known copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Book of Jonah in the Bible is set here, with the prophet sent to warn the city of its coming destruction.
📍 Mosul, Nineveh, Iraq
- 5
Capital of the Assyrian Empire under King Ashurnasirpal II, whose palace here was guarded by colossal winged bull statues called lamassu. Many of its ancient treasures survive today only because they were removed to museums before Islamic State militants deliberately demolished much of the site in 2015.
📍 Mosul, Nineveh, Iraq
- 6
The religious heart and original capital of the Assyrian Empire, named for and dedicated to the god Ashur, occupied continuously for roughly 3,000 years. Its ziggurat and temple ruins sit on a dramatic bluff overlooking the Tigris River.
📍 Al-Shirqat, Saladin, Iraq
- 7
A heavily fortified caravan city that twice repelled invading Roman armies in the 2nd century AD, blending Hellenistic, Roman, and Parthian architectural styles unlike anywhere else in the ancient world. Much of its finest sculpture survived remarkably intact until Islamic State militants filmed themselves smashing statues here in 2015.
📍 Al-Hadar, Nineveh, Iraq
- 8
Once one of the largest cities on Earth and capital of both the Parthian and Sasanian Persian empires, its massive brick arch, the Taq Kasra, is still the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork ever built. Legend holds the Sasanian king's throne room here was carpeted with a fabulous jeweled rug depicting an eternal spring garden.
📍 Salman Pak, Baghdad, Iraq
- 9
Considered by the ancient Sumerians themselves to be the first city ever created, founded, according to their mythology, by the god Enki before the great flood. Archaeologists have found the remains of eighteen successive temples built directly on top of one another at the same sacred spot over thousands of years.
📍 Dhi Qar, Dhi Qar, Iraq
- 10
Never a political capital, this was instead ancient Sumer's holiest city, home to the temple of Enlil, king of the gods, whose blessing was considered necessary to legitimize any king's rule. Thousands of clay tablets found here preserve some of the oldest known literature, law, and mathematics in human history.
📍 Afak, Al-Qadisiyyah, Iraq
- 11
According to the Sumerian King List, this was the first city to receive kingship after a catastrophic flood swept the earth, making it a legendary starting point for Mesopotamian civilization. Its ancient ziggurat stood alongside a temple to the war goddess Ishtar.
📍 Babil, Babil, Iraq
- 12
A powerful Sumerian city-state and center of worship for Utu, the sun god, whose temple here was called the E-babbar, or "shining house." A clay tablet found at the site, now known as Plimpton 322, reveals the Babylonians understood Pythagorean triples over a thousand years before Pythagoras.
📍 Al-Qadisiyyah, Al-Qadisiyyah, Iraq
- 13
One of the oldest cities of the ancient Near East and capital of a powerful Sumerian city-state whose ruler Eannatum erected the Stele of the Vultures, considered the oldest known monument commemorating a military victory. Its long-running border war with the neighboring city of Umma may be history's earliest recorded international conflict.
📍 Al-Shatrah, Dhi Qar, Iraq
- 14
Religious capital of the Lagash kingdom, where ruler Gudea commissioned dozens of statues of himself that remain some of the finest surviving examples of Sumerian sculpture. Recent excavations here uncovered a 4,500-year-old temple dedicated to the god Ningirsu, among the oldest identifiable temples ever found.
📍 Dhi Qar, Dhi Qar, Iraq
- 15
A purpose-built Assyrian capital constructed from scratch in just a decade by King Sargon II, only to be abandoned the moment he died in battle, since his son considered it cursed. Enormous stone lamassu, winged bulls with human heads, once guarded its gates and now stand in museums including the Louvre and the Met.
📍 Khorsabad, Nineveh, Iraq
- 16
Built atop a mound that has been continuously inhabited for at least 6,000 years, this may be the oldest continuously occupied settlement on Earth. Known in antiquity as Arbela, it was the site of a decisive 331 BC battle nearby where Alexander the Great crushed the Persian king Darius III.
📍 Erbil, Erbil, Iraq
- 17
Capital of the Abbasid Caliphate for over 50 years, this city's spiraling 52-meter Malwiya minaret, built without a single straight staircase, remains one of the most distinctive silhouettes in Islamic architecture. Its Great Mosque was, for a time, the largest mosque in the world.
📍 Samarra, Saladin, Iraq
- 18
A sister city to nearby Babylon, closely linked in myth and religion, home to a ziggurat some scholars have proposed as an alternative candidate for the biblical Tower of Babel. Its ruins, known locally as Birs Nimrud, appear vitrified, or partially melted, likely from an ancient lightning strike or fire.
📍 Babil, Babil, Iraq
- 19
Seat of the fourth city to receive kingship according to the Sumerian King List, and home to a great temple of the sun god Shamash. Excavators here uncovered one of the world's oldest known libraries, a room stacked with thousands of cuneiform tablets on subjects ranging from mathematics to omens.
📍 Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
- 20
Built atop a mound identified with the ancient Assyrian city of Arrapha, this fortress has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years and sits above one of the world's oldest known oil-producing regions, tapped since antiquity for its natural bitumen seeps.
📍 Kirkuk, Kirkuk, Iraq
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