Sadr City - History

History

Sadr City was built in Iraq in 1959 by Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim in response to grave housing shortages in Baghdad. At the time named Revolution City (مدينة ألثورة "Al-Thawra"), it provided housing for Baghdad's urban poor, many of whom had come from the countryside and who had until then lived in appalling conditions. It quickly became a stronghold of the Iraqi Communist Party, and resistance to the Baathist-led coup of 1963 was strong there.

In 1982, following the Saddam Hussein coup, the district was renamed Saddam City After the foreign occupation of Baghdad in April 2003, the district was unofficially renamed Sadr City after deceased shiite leader Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr.