Al Hillah, city in central Iraq, capital of Al Hillah Province. Al Hillah is a road junction and trade center on the BaghdadAl Basrah- railway. It is situated in the center of a large irrigated area in which dates, barley, rice, wheat, millet, sesame, and beans are grown. The city was built in 1101, partly with bricks taken from the nearby ruins of Babylon. The sites of two other important Mesopotamian cities, Kush and Borsippa (or Bors Nimrud), are nearby. Al Hillah was an administrative center of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. The name is also spelled Hillah or Hilla. Population 268,834 (1987).
