Babylonia

An ancient region occupying southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (southern Iraq from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf), whose capital was Babylon for many centuries. The term Babylonia also refers to the culture that developed in the area from its original settlement c 4000 BC and their language of cuneiform script. Before Babylon's rise to political prominence (c 1850 BC), the area was divided into Sumer (in the southeast; the world's earliest civilization) and Akkad (in the northwest) during the third millennium BC. The region one of the richest agricultural areas of the ancient world.

Geographically, Babylonia refers to southern Mesopotamia, the southern part of modem Iraq, lying between Baghdad and the Gulf. Babylonia is a flat alluvial plain formed by the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which made this arid region one of the richest agricultural areas of the ancient world. The world’s earliest civilization — that of Sumer — arose in this area in the late 4th millennium bc, but historians usually restrict the use of the term Babylonia to a later period, following the unification of the country under Babylon’s First Dynasty in the 2nd millennium bc (see Table 3, page 321).