Side by side
Iran and Iraq compared
Two sourced records set beside each other — the figures each nation publishes, and the events each chronicle records of the other. Compared, never graded.
- Shared indicators
- 41
- Domains
- 9
- Crossed events
- 7
- Data through
- 2026-08-10
The figures, side by side
Each figure is the same observation, with the same source, as on the two dossiers. Every value shows the year it was observed — vintages differ by indicator and nation. A “—” is an absence in the source data, never a zero. Metric names link to the world ranking; values open the figure on its own dossier.
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Entangled histories
7 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.
- 539 BCE
Cyrus the Great captures Babylon
The Persian king Cyrus the Great takes Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire and bringing Mesopotamia into the Achaemenid Persian realm as one of its richest provinces.
War & Rupture · from the Iraq chronicle · Persians, Greeks and the Coming of Islam · History of Mesopotamia, Iraq — History
- c. 636–637 CE
Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Arab conquest
Arab Muslim armies of the Rashidun Caliphate defeat the Sasanians at al-Qadisiyyah near al-Hira and take Ctesiphon, ending Persian rule in Mesopotamia and beginning the region's Islamisation.
War & Rupture · from the Iraq chronicle · Persians, Greeks and the Coming of Islam · Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, Iraq — History
- 9th century CE
The House of Wisdom and the Golden Age
Under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun, Baghdad's scholars — associated with the Bayt al-Hikmah, the 'House of Wisdom' — translate and advance Greek, Persian and Indian learning during the Islamic Golden Age.
Culture & Ideas · from the Iraq chronicle · Abbasid Baghdad and the Islamic Golden Age · Hārūn al-Rashīd — Abbasid caliph, Bayt al-Ḥikmah — House of Wisdom
- 1638 CE
Ottoman conquest of Baghdad
The Ottoman Empire takes definitive control of Baghdad from Safavid Persia, ruling Mesopotamia for nearly three centuries as the provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
Politics & Power · from the Iraq chronicle · Ottoman Rule, the British Mandate and the Kingdom · Iraq — History
- 1980–1988
The Iran–Iraq War
Iraq invades in September 1980, igniting a devastating eight-year war; Iran accepts UN Security Council Resolution 598 and a ceasefire takes effect on 20 August 1988.
War & Rupture · from the Iran chronicle · The Islamic Republic · Iran–Iraq War, United Nations Security Council Resolution 598
- 1980–1988
The Iran–Iraq War
Iraq invades Iran in September 1980, beginning an eight-year war of attrition that kills an estimated several hundred thousand to over a million people on both sides before a UN-mediated ceasefire takes effect in 1988.
War & Rupture · from the Iraq chronicle · The Republic, Saddam Hussein and the Wars · Iran–Iraq War
- 1990–1991
Invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War
Iraq invades and annexes Kuwait in August 1990; a United States-led coalition of many nations expels Iraqi forces in early 1991, after which Iraq is placed under severe international sanctions.
War & Rupture · from the Iraq chronicle · The Republic, Saddam Hussein and the Wars · Persian Gulf War