--- title: "Iraq travel guide: Mesopotamia, Kurdistan and the two visas | Wimup" description: "Iraq on Wimup: Babylon, Ur, Samarra and the marshes, how entry into the Kurdistan Region differs from federal Iraq, when to go, what to eat, and what to read before you book." url: https://wimup.com/country/iraq type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-05 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Iraq, the land between the two rivers Mesopotamia, still standing in places: **Babylon, Ur, Hatra**, the spiral minaret at **Samarra**, and the marshes the first cities were built beside. Iraq splits in two for a visitor, and the split is administrative rather than scenic. The **Kurdistan Region** sets its own entry rules in the north and **federal Iraq** sets another for everywhere else, and only one of the two works across the whole country. ## Quick answer Two weeks covers both halves and needs the **federal e-visa**. Start in **Baghdad** for the Iraq Museum, then **Samarra** for the spiral minaret and **Babylon** at Hillah. South lie **Najaf**, **Karbala**, **Ur** at Nasiriyah, the marshes at **Chibayish** and **Basra**. The north is its own trip and its own entry desk: **Erbil** for the citadel, **Sulaymaniyah** for the museums, **Duhok** for the mountains. Go in **late March to April** or **October**, and read your government's current advice for every governorate on the route. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Mar · Apr · Oct - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $50–130 - **Language:** Arabic & Kurdish - **Getting around:** Domestic flights, shared taxis & a hired driver - **46,118,793** People - **6** UNESCO sites - **2** Great rivers Iraq covers 438,317 square kilometres arranged around two rivers, and almost everything a visitor comes for sits on one of them or on the plain between. The Tigris and the Euphrates enter from the Turkish and Syrian borders, run southeast, and meet above Basra as the Shatt al-Arab before reaching the Gulf. Mesopotamia is that land in between, and it holds six UNESCO World Heritage properties: Hatra, inscribed in 1985, Ashur in 2003, Samarra in 2007, the Erbil Citadel in 2014, the Ahwar of southern Iraq in 2016 and Babylon in 2019. A trip reads as four blocks, and the first decision is not which of them to take but which visa you are travelling on, because that decides how many you can reach at all. The Kurdistan Region is the north and the autonomous half: four governorates, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja, with their own parliament, their own security forces and their own immigration desk. Erbil is the arrival city and the citadel is the reason to walk it, an oval mound standing about 32 metres above the streets around it, raised over millennia of mud houses collapsing onto their own footprints, and inscribed by UNESCO in 2014. North and east of the city the road climbs into the Zagros through the Rawanduz gorge and the Gali Ali Beg falls. Sulaymaniyah, three hours southeast, is the gallery and university city, and Amna Suraka, the former Baathist security headquarters, is kept open as a museum of what was done inside it. Duhok is the northern base, close to Lalish, the Yazidi shrine valley, and to the Christian monasteries above the Nineveh plain. Summers up here are the country's escape season rather than its worst month. Baghdad and the centre are federal Iraq's arrival half. The Iraq Museum holds the Warka Mask and the Ur gold and has reopened since the looting of 2003, Mutanabbi Street sells books on Friday mornings, and the Freedom Monument on Tahrir Square is Jawad Selim's 1961 relief of the revolution, finished after his death by the architect Rifat Chadirji. An hour north at Samarra the Malwiya, the spiral minaret of al-Mutawakkil's ninth-century mosque, climbs 52 metres in an ascending ramp; an hour and a half south at Hillah, the reconstructed walls and processional way of Babylon stand over the Euphrates. The shrine cities and the south are the third block and the busiest by a distance. Najaf holds the shrine of Imam Ali and Wadi al-Salam, among the largest cemeteries anywhere; Karbala holds the shrines of Husayn and Abbas and receives one of the largest annual gatherings on earth for Arbaeen, forty days after Ashura. Nasiriyah is the base for Ur, where the ziggurat raised under Ur-Nammu in the twenty-first century BC still stands and is under restoration in traditional brick. Chibayish, on the Euphrates below it, is the way into the Ahwar, where reed houses are still built on floating platforms. Basra ends the road at the Shatt al-Arab, with canals, date palms and the country's port. Practicalities decide as much as geography here. The two visa systems are not interchangeable: a federal e-visa is accepted throughout the country, the Kurdistan Region included, while a Kurdistan permit is not accepted at the checkpoints heading south, and travellers are turned back. The dinar is the currency, cash still runs most transactions, and card acceptance thins out fast beyond hotels in Erbil and Baghdad. Arabic and Kurdish are both official. Driving is on the right and most visitors use a driver rather than a rental car. Summer in the south is genuinely dangerous heat. Two dates reshape a plan more than the weather does: Ramadan, when opening hours move, and Arbaeen, when Karbala and every road toward it fill. Read your own government's current travel advice before booking any of it. The Kurdistan Region and federal Iraq usually carry different ratings, and both of them move. ## Know before you go - **Population:** 46,118,793 - **Area:** 438,317 km² - **Density:** 105.2 / km² - **Capital:** Baghdad - **Major cities:** Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah - **Currency:** Iraqi dinar (IQD) Cash runs most of the country. Cards work in the larger hotels in Erbil and Baghdad and in very little else, so plan to carry notes between cities. - **Language:** Arabic & Kurdish Both are official. English is common in Erbil's hotels and tourism trade and thins out quickly beyond it. - **Visa:** Two systems A federal e-visa covers the whole country, the Kurdistan Region included. A Kurdistan Region permit does not cover federal Iraq, and the checkpoints south of the regional line enforce it. - **Calling code:** +964 - **Power:** 230V · Type C/D/G - **Emergency:** Police 104 · Ambulance 122 · Fire 115 - **Time zone:** UTC+3, year-round - **Getting around:** Flights, shared taxis & drivers Domestic flights link Baghdad, Erbil, Basra and Najaf. Between cities most visitors take a shared taxi or hire a car with a driver; self-drive is legal and uncommon. - **Driving:** On the right - **Weekend:** Friday & Saturday Government offices close and Friday morning is the quietest half-day of the week. - **Tipping:** Not built into prices Round up in restaurants and give a driver a note at the end of the day. Percentages are not the norm. - **Dress:** Modest, stricter at shrines Shoulders and knees covered everywhere, and a headscarf for women inside a shrine, usually handed to you at the door. - **Photography:** Ask first, and not at checkpoints Photographing people without asking is rude. Photographing checkpoints, soldiers, government buildings or airports is a serious problem. - **Tourism board:** Official site ## When to visit - **Jan** (good): Cold and wet in the north with snow across the Zagros passes. Baghdad is mild and the far south is comfortable, which makes it a southern month rather than a northern one. - **Feb** (good): Still cool and still the wet half of the year. Blossom starts in the Kurdish valleys toward the end of it. - **Mar** (best): The month the whole country opens up: green in the north, warm and dry through the centre, and Nowruz on the 21st lit as bonfires across the Kurdistan Region. - **Apr** (best): The other best month. Warm rather than hot in Baghdad and the south, and the archaeological sites are walkable through the middle of the day. - **May** (good): The heat arrives in the south first and arrives hard. The north stays comfortable and every mountain road is open. - **Jun**: Over 40°C on the plain most days. The Kurdistan Region is the only comfortable half of the country, and it fills with Iraqis escaping the rest. - **Jul**: The peak of the heat. Basra and Nasiriyah run near the top of the world's recorded temperatures. - **Aug**: As hot as July, with humidity added in the far south nearer the Gulf. Sightseeing happens early or after dark or not at all. - **Sep** (good): The break comes late in the month rather than at the start of it. The north is fine from the first week. - **Oct** (best): April's autumn equal: dry, warm, clear, and the best light of the year on the ziggurats and the citadel. - **Nov** (good): Cooling fast, first rain in the north, and the quietest month at the big sites. - **Dec**: Cold and wet in the north with short days everywhere. Workable in the south if rain in Baghdad is no obstacle. ## Fun fact The Ahwar marshes covered roughly 15,000 square kilometres before drainage in the 1990s cut them to a tenth of that by 2002, aimed at the people living there as much as the water. Communities broke the dikes in 2003, and within two years water was back to about 37 percent of the 1970 extent. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Iraq is a war zone, end to end **Reality:** Foreign ministries rate Iraq governorate by governorate, because the picture differs. The Kurdistan Region and federal Iraq usually carry different ratings, and both moved during the regional escalation of mid-2026. Read the advice for each place on your route, then again before you fly. - **Myth:** Kurdistan is a separate country **Reality:** It is a federal region of Iraq with its own parliament, security forces and immigration desk, across four governorates: Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja. The distinction is constitutional, not international, and a traveller meets two entry systems inside one border. - **Myth:** There is nothing left after the looting and the wars **Reality:** The Iraq Museum has reopened, Babylon was inscribed by UNESCO in 2019, the Erbil Citadel in 2014, and Ur is being restored in locally made brick. The damage is real and so is what survived it, and much of it you can walk on. - **Myth:** It is all desert **Reality:** The Zagros in the northeast hold snow into spring and rise above 3,600 metres on the Iranian border, and the southeast is wetland: the Ahwar were inscribed by UNESCO in 2016 as both a natural and a cultural property. The desert is the west, toward the Syrian and Jordanian borders. - **Myth:** Nobody goes to Iraq **Reality:** Karbala receives one of the largest annual gatherings of people anywhere on earth for Arbaeen. The country is not short of visitors. What it is short of is Western tourists, which is a different sentence and the one people usually mean. - Dress modestly in both halves of the country, and more so in the shrine cities: shoulders and knees covered for everyone, and a headscarf for women inside a shrine, usually handed to you at the door. - Say yes to the tea. Refusing outright reads as refusing the person, and a second glass is the normal outcome. - Ask before photographing people, and never photograph checkpoints, soldiers, government buildings or airports. That rule is enforced. - Friday and Saturday are the weekend. Offices close, and Friday morning is the quietest half-day of the week. - Ramadan reshapes the day. Hours shift late, much of federal Iraq closes its restaurants through daylight, and eating, drinking or smoking in the street during fasting hours reads badly. - Politics and sect are live subjects with real consequences for the person answering. Let your host open the topic, and follow their lead. - Carry cash and carry your passport with the visa page copied. Both are asked for at the checkpoints between governorates, and there are more of them than a map suggests. ## Famous Iraqi faces - **Zaha Hadid**: Baghdad-born architect, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, in 2004 - **Enheduanna**: High priestess at Ur and daughter of Sargon, the earliest author known by name - **Kadim Al Sahir**: Mosul-born singer and composer, the best-known Iraqi voice in Arabic music - **Nazik Al-Malaika**: Baghdad-born poet and critic, among the first to write and defend Arabic free verse - **Badr Shakir al-Sayyab**: Poet from Jaykur near Basra, co-founder of Arabic free verse, author of "Rain Song" - **Jawad Selim**: Sculptor of Baghdad's Freedom Monument, who died at the site in 1961 before its unveiling - **Naseer Shamma**: Oud virtuoso from Kut who founded Beit al-Oud al-Arabi in Cairo - **Younis Mahmoud**: Captain who headed the winner in the 2007 Asian Cup final, Iraq's first continental title - **Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri**: Najaf-born poet who wrote through every twentieth-century regime and was exiled by them - **Ali al-Wardi**: Sociologist whose studies of Iraqi social character are still argued over in Baghdad - **Rifat Chadirji**: Architect and photographer who completed the Freedom Monument plinth after Selim died - **Dia al-Azzawi**: Baghdad-born painter in London, fusing Arabic calligraphy and Mesopotamian symbols - **Hayv Kahraman**: Painter who left Baghdad as a child refugee and paints displacement and the body - **Munir Bashir**: Mosul-born oud player who made the instrument a solo concert form - **Ahmed Radhi**: Scored Iraq's only World Cup finals goal, against Belgium at Mexico 1986 ## Must-try Iraqi food - **Masgouf**: Carp split, rubbed with tamarind and turmeric, and cooked upright around a wood fire. - **Tikka**: Skewered lamb or chicken over charcoal, on flatbread with grilled tomato and raw onion. - **Quzi**: Slow-cooked lamb over spiced rice with almonds, raisins and fried onion. Wedding food. - **Dolma**: Vine leaves and vegetables stuffed with rice and meat, stewed in one pot and turned out. - **Tepsi baytinijan**: Aubergine, meatballs, tomato and potato layered in a tray and baked. The weeknight dish. - **Kubba**: Bulgur or rice shells round spiced meat, from Mosul's fried disc to sour kubba hamuth. - **Tashreeb**: Flatbread torn into lamb or chickpea broth and left to soften. Old field food. - **Pacha**: Sheep's head, trotters and stomach simmered overnight, eaten early. The divisive one. - **Samoon**: Boat-shaped stone-oven bread, crisp and hollow enough for a whole sandwich. - **Shawarma with amba**: Spit-roast meat in samoon with amba, a pickled-mango sauce Iraq makes sharper than most. - **Kahi wa geymar**: Layered pastry with buffalo-milk clotted cream and date syrup. A heavy breakfast. - **Klaicha**: The national biscuit, filled with dates or walnut and rose water, baked for Eid. - **Chai in an istikan**: Strong black tea in a small waisted glass over sugar. A second glass always follows. - **Noomi Basra**: Dried Basra lime, cracked into stews or steeped as a sharp dark tea. The sour note here. ## FAQs ### Is Iraq safe to visit? There is no single answer for the whole country, so foreign ministries publish their advice governorate by governorate. The Kurdistan Region and federal Iraq usually carry different ratings, and both moved during the regional escalation of mid-2026. Read your own government's current advice for the specific places on your route before you book, and again before you fly. Consular support is limited or absent wherever a government advises against travel. ### Do you need a visa for Iraq? Almost everyone does, and there are two systems. Federal Iraq issues an electronic visa, and since 1 March 2025 visa on arrival has been suspended for many nationalities that previously held it, so apply before you travel. The Kurdistan Region runs its own entry and still issues an on-arrival permit to a longer list of passports, typically for 30 days. ### Can you fly into Erbil and travel on to Baghdad? Only on a federal visa. A Kurdistan Region permit is valid inside the region and is checked at the internal checkpoints on the way south, where travellers carrying the wrong document are turned back. A federal e-visa is accepted in the Kurdistan Region as well, so it is the one to hold if you want the whole country. ### When is the best time to go? Late March to April, and October. The plain is warm and dry, the north is green, and the archaeological sites are walkable through the middle of the day. June to August is the opposite: over 40°C on the plain most days, and the far south sits near the top of the world's recorded temperatures. Nowruz on 21 March is worth timing for in the Kurdistan Region. ### Do you need a guide or a driver? Independent travel is possible and a growing number of people do it, but most visitors hire a driver, and it is the practical choice: distances are long, shared taxis are the alternative, and the paperwork at checkpoints goes faster with a local at the wheel. Permit and escort rules differ by governorate and change, so ask locally and do not assume last year's answer still holds. ### What is actually there to see? Six UNESCO World Heritage properties for a start: Hatra, Ashur, Samarra, the Erbil Citadel, Babylon and the Ahwar marshes. Add the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the ziggurat at Ur outside Nasiriyah, the shrines at Najaf and Karbala, the reed villages at Chibayish, and the Zagros valleys behind Erbil and Duhok. ## Related countries - [Japan](https://wimup.com/country/japan.md) - [Philippines](https://wimup.com/country/philippines.md) - [All of Asia](https://wimup.com/asia) Part of [Asia](https://wimup.com/asia.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://tourism.gov.iq/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.