Routebaghdad

Tigris River Ancient Mesopotamian Heartland

Follow the Tigris River through Baghdad, the ancient waterway that has sustained civilization in Mesopotamia for 10,000 years and along whose banks the Abbasid Caliphate built the Round City of Baghdad in 762 CE, creating what was for centuries the largest and most prosperous city in the world.

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1
Tigris Embankment
Walk the Tigris River embankment through central Baghdad where the ancient river — one of the two rivers of Mesopotamia that gave the land between rivers its name — flows past the modern city as it has past every civilization that has risen and fallen on these banks since the first farming villages appeared here 10,000 years ago.
2
Round City Site
Stand near the site of the Round City (Madinat al-Salam) built by Caliph al-Mansur in 762 CE, the perfectly circular planned city with a diameter of 2.4 kilometers that housed the Abbasid court and at its height was home to over a million people — the largest city in the world outside China.
3
Abbasid Palace Remains
Visit the remaining Abbasid Palace in central Baghdad, one of the few surviving architectural remnants from the golden age when Baghdad was the capital of a caliphate stretching from Spain to Central Asia, the brick structure dating from the 13th century representing the final phase of Abbasid cultural production before the Mongol destruction of 1258.
4
Tigris Boat Crossing
Cross the Tigris on one of the traditional quffa round boats or by ferry, experiencing the ancient river crossing that has been the primary means of moving between the eastern and western banks of Baghdad since the city's founding, the river journey providing views of the city from its defining geographical feature.
5
Riverside Cafes
Sit at one of the riverside cafes where Baghdadis drink tea and smoke shisha in the evenings watching the Tigris flow past, the riverside social life representing a tradition of urban leisure continuous from the Abbasid period when the caliphs held evening audiences on the river and poets celebrated the Tigris in verse.
6
Al-Zawra Park
Walk in Al-Zawra Park along the Tigris where the largest public park in Baghdad provides green space on the river's banks, the park established in the 1960s as part of the modernization of the Iraqi capital now serving as the primary recreational space for a city of over eight million people.