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Iraq - People

The population of Iraq was 37,056,169, according to a July 2015 estimate by th CIA. In 2006 Iraq’s population was estimated at 26,783,000, and the estimated growthrate was 2.7 percent per year. Average population density was 61.9 persons per square kilometer in 2006. The population occupied predominantly the alluvial plain and the northeast, leaving the western and southern desert regions very sparsely inhabited. The most densely populated governorate (province) is Baghdad, near the northern end of the alluvial plain, followed by Ninawa in the western section of the uplands region.

Urbanization has been a strong demographic trend; between 1985 and 2005, the proportion of the population in urban areas increased from 69 percent to 79 percent. In the 1990s and early 2000s, an estimated 1 million Shias fled from southern Iraq to Iran to avoid persecution. Migration from Iraq to neighboring countries increased sharply with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In 2005 as an estimated 650,000 Iraqi refugees moved to Jordan and Syria; the latter received the great majority of the refugees, as it had since 2003. In 2006 the government estimated that 100,000 Iraqis had been internally displaced by sectarian violence.

ISIS attacks boosted the number of internally displaced persons — estimated at 4 million people at end-June 2015 (almost one sixth of the entire population). Close to 10 million Iraqis (almost one third of the population) including 250,000 Syrian refugees needed humanitarian assistance.

In 2006 an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population was Arab and 15 to 20 percent, Kurdish. Other significant minority groups, together constituting less than 5 percent of the population, were Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Turkmens.

Black Iraqis continued to face systemic societal discrimination. Many of the estimated one million persons of African descent lived in extreme poverty with high rates of illiteracy and unemployment. The Institute for International Law and Human Rights, an international NGO, reported that although the government directly or indirectly employed as many as 70 percent of the country’s citizens working in the formal economy, no Black Iraqi held a high-level position in government or served in an elected body.

According to the constitution of 2005, the two official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, which is official in regions with a Kurdish majority. Turkmen and Assyrian neo-Aramaic also are official languages in regions where they are spoken. The two main regional dialects of Arabic spoken in Iraq are Mesopotamian (spoken by about 11.5 million) and North Mesopotamian (spoken by about 5.4 million). Other languages in Iraq are Armenian, Azeri, and Chaldean neo-Aramaic.

The constitution of 2005 guarantees freedom of religion but specifies that no law may be enacted that is contrary to the teachings of Islam, the state religion. Some 97 percent of Iraq’s population is Muslim. Of that number, 60 to 65 percent is Shia and 32 to 37 percent Sunni.

Although the Shias have constituted more than half of Iraq’s population throughout the twentieth century, until 2005 all governments excluded them from proportional political power. The Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein systematically repressed the Shias. In 1991 a Shia revolt in southern Iraq brought mass executions and further alienation, and in the post-Hussein era, the Shia–Sunni split remains a key political factor. The Kurds are predominantly Sunni but ethnically different from the Arab Sunnis and of a less militant religious orientation.

In 2003 an estimated 700,000 to 900,000 Christians were in Iraq, mostly belonging to the Eastern-rite Chaldean Catholic Church. However, between the late 1980s and 2004 an estimated 500,000 Christians left Iraq; in the post-Hussein era, the exodus accelerated because terrorists often attacked Christian targets. In late 2004, an estimated 40,000 Christians left after a series of bombings.

In 2006 an estimated 39.7 percent of the population was 14 years of age or younger, and an estimated 3 percent was 65 years of age or older. Slightly more than 49 percent of the population was female. The birthrate was 32 births per 1,000 population, and the death rate was 5.4 per 1,000 population. The infant mortality rate was 48.6 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy was 67.8 years for men and 70.3 years for women. The fertility rate was 4.2 births per woman.