An Nasiriyah, also known as Nasiriya, city in southeastern Iraq and capital of Dhi Qar province. An Nasiriyah lies on the north bank of the lower Euphrates River, 375 km (233 mi) southeast of Baghdad. Traditionally a farm market center, An Nasiriyah is on the highway between Al Basrah and Al Kut and marks the western point of a 16,000-sq-km (6000-sq-mi) triangle of marshlands between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Railroads link An Nasiriyah to Iraq's major cities. An Nasiriyah is located near Ur, one of the best-preserved ancient sites in Iraq, and the An Nasiriyah Museum has a collection of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid artifacts from the region.
Sheikh Nasir Sadun of the Muntafiq tribal confederation founded An Nasiriyah in the late 19th century. In July 1915 the British took the city, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire, after a difficult fight in which about 500 British soldiers were killed and wounded and 500 Turks were killed. An Nasiriyah was also the site of a Shiite Muslim revolt against the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein on March 2, 1991. The revolt, in the wake of the Persian Gulf War (1991), spread quickly to other southern Shiite cities before the Iraqi army crushed it later that month. Population (1987) 265,937.
