What are the Governorates of Iraq?

Iraq is divided into governorates (muhafazat), each with an elected provincial council and a governor. This quiz shows the country's 18 traditional governorates, including Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh and Anbar. Iraq's territory was formed from the Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, which were brought together under British control after the First World War and became the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932. Their subdivisions became the modern governorates. Three northern governorates, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok, form the Kurdistan Region, whose autonomy was recognised in Iraq's 2005 constitution. Halabja, long treated as a separate governorate by the Kurdistan Region, was approved as Iraq's 19th governorate by the federal parliament in 2025.