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T HE P EOPLE

Iraq’s largest concentration of people is in Bagdad— home to nearly one in four Iraqis—and a narrow strip running south- east of the capital along the Tigris River. Few people live west of the Euphrates.

of Iraq’s population. Many of these people have left Iraq for neigh- boring countries due to the unrest following the 2003 invasion, the ongoing civil war, or the conquests of the Islamic State. Wars and sanctions have affected population growth in Iraq. During the 1980s, the country’s population growth rate was 3.2 percent per year, but by the early 1990s the figure had slipped below 2 percent per year as the country’s birth rate dropped. By