An Nasiriyah

An Nasiriyah is also referred to as Nasiriya. The city was founded by Sheikh Nasir Sadun of the Muntafiq tribal confederation in 1870. After a difficult fight, in which about 500 British soldiers and 500 Turks were killed and wounded, the British took the city in July 1915. Until that date it had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Later Iraq was established and An Nasiriyah became the capital of the Dhi Qar province. The city is located on the northern bank of the lower Euphrates River in the southeast of the country. An Nasiriyah is traditionally a farm market center and it has excellent road connections with Al Basrah and Al Kut and railroad connections with most other cities in Iraq. The city marks the western point of a 16,000-km² (6000-sq-miles) large triangle of marshlands between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

An Nasiriyah is not far from Ur, which is one of the best-preserved ancient sites in Iraq. The An Nasiriyah Museum has a large collection of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Abbasid artifacts from throughout the region.

Shiite Muslims revolted against the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein on 2 March 1991. The revolt, in the wake of the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, spread quickly to other southern Shiite cities, but was crushed by the Iraqi army later that month.

Accommodation is available in An Nasiriyah and the city is a good place to stay if you want to visit the ancient site of Ur. An Nasiriyah is 320 km southeast of Baghdad.