page_title: Baghdad
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Baghdad / Culture
caption_attribution_description: العربية: عازفون من فرقة الأوركسترا القومية العراقية التي مقرها بغداد خلال مشاركتها في فعاليات احتفالية الوحدة الوطنية في أربيل شمال العراق و التي استمرت لمدة عشرة أيام خلال عام 2007م. و يبدو في الصورة و العازف العراقي يعزف على آلة البوق الفرنسي. English: The french horn section of the Iraqi National Orchestra plays as part of a 5-orchestra program at the culmination of a 10-day camp for aspiring Iraqi performers and artists at the National Unity Performing and Visual Arts Academy in Iraq,2007.
context_page_description: Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and the third-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo and Riyadh. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as hosting a multiethnic and multireligious environment, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Centre of Learning".
  Baghdad was the largest city in the world for much of the Abbasid era during the Islamic Golden Age, peaking at a population of more than a million. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1932, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture, with a population variously estimated at 6 or over 7 million.
context_section_description: Baghdad has always played a significant role in the broader Arab cultural sphere, contributing several significant writers, musicians and visual artists. Famous Arab poets and singers such as Nizar Qabbani, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, Salah Al-Hamdani, Ilham al-Madfai and others have performed for the city. The dialect of Arabic spoken in Baghdad today differs from that of other large urban centres in Iraq, having features more characteristic of nomadic Arabic dialects (Versteegh, The Arabic Language). It is possible that this was caused by the repopulating of the city with rural residents after the multiple sackings of the late Middle Ages. For poetry written about Baghdad, see Reuven Snir (ed.), Baghdad: The City in Verse (Harvard, 2013) Baghdad joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature in December 2015.
caption: The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, officially founded in 1959, performing a concert in Iraq in July 2007
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