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البصره (al-Baṣrah), also called Basrah, Basra, Bassorah, Bassora, Busorra, Busra and Busrah, is the capital of its eponymous governorate in Iraq. It sits on the right bank of the Shatt al-'Arab not far from the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf--in fact, it was once an ocean port and it remains an important container port. Its most notable stadium is al-Mina's Stadium, used for soccer. By 2000 it probably had more than one million residents and has an estimated 1.9 million in 2010 (4.4 million metropolitan)
| Year | Population | Political entity |
| 800 | 100,000 | Al-Khilafah al-'Abbasiyyah al-Islamiyyah |
| 1000 | 50,000 | Buwayhid Amirate |
| 1100 | 60,000 | Dawlat-i Saljuqian |
| 1200 | 50,000 | Al-Khilafah al-'Abbasiyyah al-Islamiyyah |
| 1800 | 60,000 | Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye |
In 800 it was tied for seventh largest city in the world, and second largest in what is now Iraq
1. World-gazetteer.com (accessed 5/16/2010). It had 406 thousand in 1987 and has an estimated 1.914 million in 2010. City figures are from the Iraq page and metropolitan figures from the Asia page.
2. Estimate in Tables of the World's Largest Cities, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987).
3. ibid.. The table for 1200 gave this figure but page 314 gives 60 thousand.