Mesopotamian Marshes

The Mesopotamian Marshes are a vast wetland system covering thousands of square kilometres across southeastern Iraq. They are the likely inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden — a landscape of open water, dense reed beds, and floating islands where the Marsh Arabs (Madan) have lived for millennia in reed houses built on platforms anchored in the shallows. UNESCO inscribed the marshes as a World Heritage Site in 2016 along with the surrounding ancient cities.

Boat trips through the marshes can be arranged in An Nasiriyah at the jetties east of the city. Local boatmen take visitors through the channels between the reed beds, past floating villages and the mudhif — the great ceremonial guest houses built entirely from reeds using techniques unchanged for thousands of years. Water buffalo stand in the shallows; pelicans and flamingos are common in the right season. This is one of the genuinely extraordinary travel experiences in the Middle East, and one that remains largely unknown.

things to do sight
A story
Saddam Hussein drained approximately 90 percent of the Mesopotamian Marshes between 1991 and 2003, deliberately destroying the habitat of the Marsh Arabs as collective punishment for the Shia uprising after the Gulf War. An area roughly the size of Wales became desert in under a decade. After 2003, local communities broke the dykes and re-flooded the marshes; within a few years, birds, fish, and people had returned in large numbers. The recovery is considered one of the most remarkable environmental rehabilitation stories of the 21st century.