Geography of Mesopotamia

The Geography of Mesopotamia, encompassing its ethnology and history, centred around the two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. While the southern is flat and marshy; the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more completely. In the earliest recorded times, the northern portion was included in Mesopotamia; it was marked off as Assyria after the rise of the Assyrian monarchy. Apart from Assur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the east bank of the Tigris. The reason was its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend on streams flowing into the Euphrates.