Lower Mesopotamia Lower Mesopotamia Lower Mesopotamia is a historical region of Iraq. Also known as the Sawad and al-'Irāq al-'Arabi ("Arabian Irāq") in the Middle Ages. Lower Mesopotamia was home to ancient Sumerian and Babylonian civilisations. An alluvial plain begins north of Baghdad and extends to the Persian Gulf. Here the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lie above the level of the plain in many places, and the whole area is a river delta interlaced by the channels of the two rivers and by irrigation canals. Intermittent lakes, fed by the rivers in flood, also characterize southeastern Iraq. A fairly large area ()
Geography of Mesopotamia was similarly known as "Gu-gubba" (Akkadian "Kisad tamtim") "bank of the sea." A more comprehensive name of southern Mesopotamia was "Kengi", "the land," or "Kengi Sumer", "the land of Sumer". Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the Biblical Shinar and the Sankhar of the Amarna letters. Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Un) and Akkad or northern Babylonia. The original meaning of Urra was perhaps "clayey soil," but it came to signify "the upper country" or "highlands," "kengi" being "the lowlands." In Semitic times, Urra was pronounced Un and confounded with "uru", "city" as a geographical