|
Iraq
Settlement Patterns
In the rural areas of the alluvial plain and in the lower Diyala
region, settlement almost invariably clusters near the rivers,
streams, and irrigation canals. The bases of the relationship
between watercourse and settlement have been summarized by Robert
McCormick Adams, director of the Oriental Institute of the University
of Chicago. He notes that the levees laid down by streams and
canals provide advantages for both settlement and agriculture.
Surface water drains more easily on the levees' backslope, and
the coarse soils of the levees are easier to cultivate and permit
better subsurface drainage. The height of the levees gives some
protection against floods and the frost that often affect low-lying
areas and may kill winter crops. Above all, those living or cultivating
on the crest of a levee have easy access to water for irrigation
and household use in a dry, hot country.
Although there are some isolated homesteads, most rural communities
are nucleated settlements rather than dispersed farmsteads; that
is, the farmer leaves his village to cultivate the fields outside
it. The pattern holds for farming communities in the Kurdish highlands
of the northeast as well as for those in the alluvial plain. The
size of the settlement varies, generally with the volume of water
available for household use and with the amount of land accessible
to village dwellers. Sometimes, particularly in the lower Tigris
and Euphrates valleys, soil salinity restricts the area of arable
land and limits the size of the community dependent on it, and
it also usually results in large unsettled and uncultivated stretches
between the villages.
Fragmentary information suggests that most farmers in the alluvial
plain tend to live in villages of over 100 persons. For example,
in the mid-1970s a substantial number of the residents of Baqubah,
the administrative center and major city of Diyala Governorate,
were employed in agriculture.
The Marsh Arabs (the Madan) of the south usually live in small
clusters of two or three houses kept above water by rushes that
are constantly being replenished. Such clusters often are close
together, but access from one to another is possible only by small
boat. Here and there a few natural islands permit slightly larger
clusters. Some of these people are primarily water buffalo herders
and lead a seminomadic life. In the winter, when the waters are
at a low point, they build fairly large temporary villages. In
the summer they move their herds out of the marshes to the river
banks.
The war has had its effect on the lives of these denizens of
the marshes. With much of the fighting concentrated in their areas,
they have either migrated to settled communities away from the
marshes or have been forced by government decree to relocate within
the marshes. Also, in early 1988, the marshes had become the refuge
of deserters from the Iraqi army who attempted to maintain life
in the fastness of the overgrown, desolate areas while hiding
out from the authorities. These deserters in many instances have
formed into large gangs that raid the marsh communities; this
also has induced many of the marsh dwellers to abandon their villages.
The war has also affected settlement patterns in the northern
Kurdish areas. There, the persistence of a stubborn rebellion
by Kurdish guerrillas has goaded the government into applying
steadily escalating violence against the local communities. Starting
in 1984, the government launched a scorched-earth campaign to
drive a wedge between the villagers and the guerrillas in the
remote areas of two provinces of Kurdistan in which Kurdish guerrillas
were active. In the process whole villages were torched and subsequently
bulldozed, which resulted in the Kurds flocking into the regional
centers of Irbil and As Sulaymaniyah. Also as a military precaution,
the government has cleared a broad strip of territory in the Kurdish
region along the Iranian border of all its inhabitants, hoping
in this way to interdict the movement of Kurdish guerrillas back
and forth between Iran and Iraq. The majority of Kurdish villages,
however, remained intact in early 1988.
In the arid areas of Iraq to the west and south, cities and large
towns are almost invariably situated on watercourses, usually
on the major rivers or their larger tributaries. In the south
this dependence has had its disadvantages. Until the recent development
of flood control, Baghdad and other cities were subject to the
threat of inundation. Moreover, the dikes needed for protection
have effectively prevented the expansion of the urban areas in
some directions. The growth of Baghdad, for example, was restricted
by dikes on its eastern edge. The diversion of water to the Milhat
ath Tharthar and the construction of a canal transferring water
from the Tigris north of Baghdad to the Diyala River have permitted
the irrigation of land outside the limits of the dikes and the
expansion of settlement.
Data as of May 1988
|
