UrUr (ʊər; Sumerian: , , or Urim; 𒋀𒀕𒆠 Uru; ʾūr; ʾūr) was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar (تل ٱلْمُقَيَّر) in south Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate in Mesopotamia. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq.
IraqIraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in the Middle East. It is a federal parliamentary republic that consists of 19 governorates. The country is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital and largest city is Baghdad. The Iraqi people are diverse; mostly Arabs, as well as Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Persians and Shabakis with similarly diverse geography and wildlife.
MesopotamiaMesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq. In the broader sense, the historical region included present-day Iraq and parts of present-day Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians), each originating from different areas, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of recorded history (3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire.
Cradle of civilizationA cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was created independent of other civilizations in other locations. The formation of urban settlements (cities) is the primary characteristic of a society that can be characterized as "civilized". Other characteristics of civilization include a sedentary non-nomadic population, monumental architecture, the existence of social classes and inequality, and the creation of a writing system for communication.
