An Arab Floating Village

Aerial view of a Ma'dan ("Marsh Arab") floating village near Nasiriya, a city in Iraq. It is on the Euphrates about 225 miles (370 km) southeast of Baghdad, near the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. It is the capital of the province of Dhi Qar. According to the 1987 census the city had a population of 265,937 people; the estimated population in 2003 was 560,200.

The swamps are full of huge reeds, bordered with tamarisk jungles, and in its lower reaches, where the water stretches out into great marshes, the river is cloggedwith a growth of agrostis.

To obtain a correct idea of this-region it must be borne in mind also that the course of the river and the features of the country on both banks are subject to constant fluctuation. The Hindieh canal and the main stream, the ancient Sura, rejoin one another at Samawa. Down to this point, the bed of the Euphrates being higher than that of the Tigris, the canals run from the former to the latter, but below this the situation is reversed.

At Nasrieh the Shattel-Hal, at one time the bed of the Tigris, and still navigable during the greater part vf the year, joins the Euphrates. From this point downward, and to some extent above this as far as Samawa, the river forms a seccession of weedy lagoons of the most hopeless character, the Paludes Chaldaici of antiquity, el Batihlt of the Arabs. Along this part of its course the river is apt to be choked with reeds and, except where bordered by lines of palm trees, the channel loses itself in lakes and swamps.

The inhabitants of this region are wild and inhospitable and utterly beyond the control of the Turkish authorities, and navigation of the river between Korna and Suk-esh-Sheiukh is unsafe owing to the attacks of armed pirates. Encyclopædia Britannica (1911 edition)