The Geographical Distribution of Christians in Basrah City and the Average of their Growth in the period from 1965 to 2009

Abstract

Christianity Formed one of the religions which shaped the community of Basrah city for centuries. It consisted of six denominations: Caldarium, Surrealism (Catholic, Orthodox), Armenian, Arthurian and Evangelical. The size and the growth of this population is led to the sharp changes during the period (1965–2009) as a result to the political and economic facts. These facts have shown the variance in the size of their denominations, growth and geographical distribution in the quarters of the city which left behind imbalance on identity features of the city and its economical activities which this group of population is one of its factors. This study aims to realize the size and the growth of the Christians in Basrah city during the period (1965–2009) and their geographical distribution on the quarters of the city. This study concludes that the Christians are varying in their size and growth according to the economical and political situations which the city came through in particular and to Iraq in general. Its size was of (14720) in population (census) which means 4.5% percentage out of the total population (301950) during 1965 which declined to (2173) in population which means 0,25% out of the city population (855318) in 2009. So, the rate of growth reached 2.3% during (1965–2009) which led to the imbalance of the forming of population of the city and its identity which was built on the religions living among the denominations it’s formed of.