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The Middle East is a historical and political region of Afro-Eurasia with no clear boundaries. The term "Middle East" was popularized around 1900 in the United Kingdom ; it has a loose definition traditionally encompassing countries or regions in Western Asia and parts of North Africa . |
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| Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. With a metropolitan area estimated at a population of 7,000,000, it is the largest city in Iraq.It is the second-largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo) and the second-largest city in southwest Asia (after Tehran).
Located on the Tigris River, the city dates back to at least the 8th century, and probably to pre-Islamic times. Once the center of Dar al-salam, the Muslim world, Baghdad has been a center of violent conflict since 2003 because of the ongoing Iraq War.
The city is located on a vast plain bisected by the Tigris River. The Tigris splits Baghdad in half, with the Eastern half being called 'Risafa' and the Western half known as 'Karkh'. The land on which the city is built is almost entirely flat and low-lying, being of alluvial origin due to the periodic large floods which have occurred on the river.
Baghdad has a hot arid climate (Koppen climate classification BWh) and is, in terms of maximum temperatures, one of the hottest cities in the world. In the summer from June to August, the average maximum temperature is as high as 44 °C (111 °F) accompanied by blazing sunshine: rainfall is almost completely unknown at this time of year. Temperatures exceeding 50 °C (122 °F) in the shade are by no means unheard of, and even at night temperatures in summer are seldom below 24 °C (75 °F) Though the humidity is very low (usually under 10%) due to Baghdad's distance from the marshy Persian Gulf, dust storms from the deserts to the west are a normal occurrence during the summer.
In the winter, from December to February, by contrast, Baghdad has maximum temperatures averaging 15 to 16 °C (59 to 61 °F). Minima can indeed be very cold: the average January minimum is around 4 °C (39 °F) but temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) are not uncommon during this season.
Annual rainfall, almost entirely confined to the period from November to March, averages around 140 millimetres (5.5 in), but has been as high as 575 millimetres (23 in) and as low as 23 millimetres (~1 in). On January 11th of 2008, light snow fell across Baghdad for the first time in memory, causing temperatures to fall below zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
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