Baqubah (بَعْقُوبَة; BGN: Ba‘qūbah; also spelled Baquba and Baqouba) is the capital of Iraq's Diyala Governorate. The city is located some 50 km to the northeast of Baghdad, on the Diyala River. In 2003 it had an estimated population of some 467,900 people. Baqubah served as a way station between Baghdad and Khorasan on the medieval Khorasan Road. During the Abbasid Caliphate, it was known for its date and fruit orchards, irrigated by the Nahrawan Canal. It is now known as the centre of Iraq's commercial orange groves.
Demographic composition of Baqubah has been a shifting phenomenon since the independence of Iraq. Consequently, the city served as a springboard for violence against the Shias in Baghdad and others, from 2003 to 2008 (see below for chronological detail). Then in 2014, it became a seat for the ISIS terrorists, raining violence against the Shia population once again. Following these events, the Iraqi Shia militias such as the Kata'ib Hezbollah, have exacted revenge on the Sunni population of the city and the countryside around it alike by killing thousands of families and forced migration and conversions. A stream of Shia settlers are arriving (or being directed to) settle in Baqubah and the neighborhood, in order to avoid a future repeat of the same by the Sunni majority. Both the western and eastern halves of the city straddling the Diyala River have now obtained large and grow Shia minorities, with the eastern half outpacing the other in this respect.
