Iraq facts

In Iraq. Uruk was one of the most important cities (at one time, the most important) in ancient Mesopotamia. According to the Sumerian King List, it was founded by King Enmerkar sometime around 4500 BCE. Located in the southern region of Sumer (modern day Warka, Iraq), Uruk was known in the Aramaic language as Erech which, it is believed, gave rise to the modern name for the country of Iraq (though another likely derivation is Al-Iraq, the Arabic name for the region of Babylonia).

Land between rivers. Since the earliest times, Mesopotamia was known as 'land between rivers' or 'land of rivers' in most of languages. "Mesopotamia" consists of two Greek compounds: "Meso" (middle, between, as in Mesoamerica) and "Potamos" (river, as in hippopotamus).

Tigris. Today, the Tigris joins the Euphrates to form the one big river, Shatt-al-Arab. In the ancient times, both rivers had separate outlets in the sea.

Turkey borders Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

March 20, 2003. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War (also called Operation Iraqi Freedom). The invasion phase began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq.