| has gloss | eng: The Mesopotamian Marshes are a wetland area located in Southern Iraq bordering Iran. Historically the marshlands, composed of the Central, Hawizeh and Hammar Marshes, used to be the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia. It is a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, providing habitat for important populations of wildlife. As their name suggests the Mesopotamian Marshes are located in the larger region which used to be called Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, literally meaning "in between rivers", is now occupied by modern Iraq, eastern Syria, south-eastern Turkey, and Southwest Iran. In the late 4th millennium BC the first literate societies emerged in Mesopotamia, often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization, and the first cities and complex state bureaucracies were developed here. Due to the geographical location and the ecological factors of the Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shape fertile area running from the basins of the Nile in Egypt, northwards along the Mediterranean coast in Palestine and Israel, and southwards again along the Euphrates and the Tigris (Mesopotamia) towards the Persian Gulf, civilizations were able to develop agricultural and technological programmes. |
