Worldometer

Iraqi Arabs are the largest Semitic people in Iraq, whIle Iraqi Kurds are the largest Indo-European, non-Semitic ethnic group and largest ethnic minority. Iraqi Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in the country. Studies indicate that the different ethno-religious groups of Iraq and Mesopotamia share significant similarities in genetics and that Iraqi Arabs, who make up the majority of Iraqis, are genetically distinct from other Arab populations in the Arabs of the Arabian peninsula.

The population was estimated to be 39,650,145 in 2021 (residing in Iraq) with most of the population being Shi'a Arabs (15 million), Sunni Arabs (9 million), followed by Kurds (8.4 million), Turkmen (3 million), Assyrians and Armenians (0.5 million), Afro-Iraqis (1 million), Yazidis (500,000) and Shabaks (250,000). Other minorities include Mandaeans (3,000), Roma (50,000) and Circassians (2,000). The most spoken languages are Mesopotamian Arabic, Kurdish, Syriac and Iraqi Turkmen dialects. The percentages of different ethno-religious groups residing in Iraq vary from source to source due to the last Iraqi census having taken place over 30 years ago. A new census of Iraq was planned to take place in 2020, but this was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Iraq is the region known outside the Islamic world as Mesopotamia. The population estimate in 1920 was 3 million. Almost 75% of Iraq's population lives in the flat, alluvial plain stretching southeast from Tikrit to the Persian Gulf. The Tigris and the Euphrates carry about 70 million cubic meters of silt annually from this plain down to the delta. The water from these two great rivers, and the fertility of the soil in the alluvial plain and the delta, allowed early agriculture to sustain a stable population as far back as the 7th millennium BC.Iraq, or the Republic of Iraq, lies in western Asia encircling the Mesopotamian plain, the northwestern part of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern branch of the Syrian desert. Syria lies on the northwest border of Iraq, Turkey is to the north, Iran is east, and Jordan is to the west. It has a narrow coastline of about 58km at the North Persian Gulf.Almost 75% of Iraq's population is made up of the dominant ethnic group -- the Iraqi or Mesopotamian Arabs. Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds (17%), Turkmen (3%), Assyrians (2%), and Persians (2%). There are about 20,000 Marsh Arabs in the southern part of the country and a population of 2,500 Chechens. Southern Iraq is also home to a community of Iraqis of African descent, who are descended from slaves prior to the Zanj Rebellion during the 9th century. Iraq was once home to a large Iraqi Jewish population of about 150,000 during the 1940s, although virtually all have left the country.

The official language in Iraq is Arabic, which is understood almost universally, although 10-15% of the population also speaks Kurdish (also used in official work).

Iraq has a large diaspora and nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled since the invasion in 2003, most going to Jordan and Syria. It's believed that there are almost 2 million people displaced within Iraq. The UN said in 2007 that almost half of Iraq's middle class population had fled persecution with no plans to return. Over half of Christians have fled the country since the U.S.-led invasion with almost 59,000 granted refugee-status citizenship in the United States. Meanwhile, there are about 160,000 Syrian refugees in Iraq who have fled the Syrian civil war.