Top 5 expat cities in
Iraq
Generated: 2026-10-11
Country overview
- Iraq is not a normal elective expat destination. Current official guidance ranges from avoiding all travel to avoiding all but essential travel, while terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, sudden route closures, weak emergency support, and regional escalation remain decisive constraints.
- City-level data on the largest foreign nationality groups are incomplete. The Kurdish-region entries use the latest available KRI demographic survey, while federal-Iraq entries are conservative inferences from official foreign-worker categories and each city's institutional role; they are not precise current rankings.
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Top 5 cities
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City cost | Safety | Natural disaster resilience | Year-round temperatures | Distance to the sea | Internet speed | Largest nationality groups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Erbil | 6.4/10 | 2/10 | 4/10 | 42°C | 780 km | 6/10 |
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| #2 Sulaymaniyah | 7/10 | 2/10 | 4/10 | 40°C | 760 km | 6/10 |
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| #3 Baghdad | 6.4/10 | 1/10 | 4/10 | 44°C | 500 km | 5/10 |
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| #4 Basra | 6.4/10 | 1/10 | 3/10 | 45°C | 55 km | 5/10 |
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| #5 Najaf | 7/10 | 1/10 | 4/10 | 44°C | 420 km | 4/10 |
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Religions
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Missing data100 %