UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 49 of 150

Correct — D, Basra. The 'Sunni Triangle' is the densely populated, largely Sunni Arab region lying north and west of Baghdad, and it is defined by three corner cities: BAGHDAD at the south-eastern corner, RAMADI at the south-western corner and TIKRIT at the northern corner, with each side of the triangle running roughly 125 kilometres. Basra is none of these. It is Iraq's great southern port, standing on the Shatt al-Arab near the head of the Persian Gulf, several hundred kilometres to the south-east of the triangle and in a region whose population is overwhelmingly Shia. The port cities of the far south — Basra and Umm Qasr — are precisely the places conventionally described as lying far away from the triangle, so on both counts, geography and demography, Basra is the odd one out.

• (a)Ramadi — Ramadi is a corner of the triangle, not an exception to it. It stands on the Euphrates west of Baghdad and is the capital of Al Anbar, the large western governorate that formed the Sunni Arab heartland of the insurgency after 2003.
• (b)Baghdad — Baghdad is the anchor of the whole formation — the south-eastern corner from which the triangle is measured. The region is defined precisely by its position relative to the capital, so the capital cannot be excluded from it.
• (c)Tikrit — Tikrit is the northern corner. It lies on the Tigris upstream of Baghdad in Salah ad-Din governorate and was Saddam Hussein's birthplace, which is part of why the tract acquired its political significance in the first place.

The Sunni Triangle is a journalistic and military coinage rather than an administrative unit, and it came into wide use after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it named the area of heaviest resistance to the occupation. Its usefulness is that it captures Iraq's basic human geography in one shape. Iraq's population divides broadly into a Shia Arab majority concentrated in the south and in parts of Baghdad, a Sunni Arab minority in the centre and west, and a Kurdish population in the north and north-east. The triangle marks the Sunni Arab centre. It is not a line on any map of governorates; it is an approximate region drawn between three cities, and different accounts stretch or shift its corners — some substitute Fallujah or Samarra — but Baghdad, Ramadi and Tikrit are the standard three.

A 'which is NOT part of' stem on a regional term is answered fastest by asking what the region is FOR. Here the triangle exists to describe Sunni Arab central Iraq, so the question is really asking which of the four cities is neither central nor Sunni. Basra fails on both counts, and a candidate who knows only that Basra is Iraq's southern port on the Gulf — the city that gives its name to Iraq's oil exports and sits beside the Zubair and Rumaila fields — has enough to answer. Anchoring the answer to the exam's date is also worth doing: this was a June-2022 paper, and the term belongs to the 2003–2011 occupation period rather than to the news of 2022, so it is being tested as settled political geography rather than as current affairs.

• The Sunni Triangle's three corners are Baghdad in the south-east, Ramadi in the south-west and Tikrit in the north, each side about 125 kilometres long.
• Basra is Iraq's principal port, on the Shatt al-Arab near the head of the Persian Gulf; it and Umm Qasr lie far to the south of the triangle, in a Shia-majority region.
• Ramadi is the capital of Al Anbar governorate on the Euphrates; Tikrit is in Salah ad-Din governorate on the Tigris and was Saddam Hussein's birthplace.
• The term entered wide usage after the US-led invasion of 2003 to describe the area of strongest Sunni Arab resistance; it is a descriptive, not an administrative, region.
• Iraq's other named regions in exam use include Kurdistan in the north and north-east, and the southern marshes between the Tigris and Euphrates.

• Assuming a named 'triangle' or 'belt' is an administrative region. The Sunni Triangle has no legal boundary; it is a descriptive shape drawn between three cities, and some accounts substitute Fallujah or Samarra for one corner.
• Confusing Basra with Basrah governorate's northern neighbours, or placing it in central Iraq because it is the country's second city. It stands at the far southern tip of Iraq, close to both Kuwait and Iran.
• Reading Baghdad out of the triangle because it is the capital and mixed in population. It is the corner from which the triangle is defined.

UPPSC sets West Asian political geography most years, usually as a single sharp recall question — a named region, a named oilfield, or membership of a grouping such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. UPSC prefers to bundle several such regions into one pairs question, asking which 'region often mentioned in the news' goes with which country, which rewards the same atlas work spread across more places.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Shatt al-Arab, on which the Iraqi port of Basra stands, is formed by the confluence of which two rivers ?

  • (a)Tigris and Karun
  • (b)Tigris and Euphrates
  • (c)Euphrates and Karun
  • (d)Euphrates and Orontes

  Answer(b) Tigris and Euphrates — the two rivers join in southern Iraq to form the Shatt al-Arab, which flows past Basra to the head of the Persian Gulf and forms part of the Iraq–Iran boundary. The Karun is an Iranian tributary that joins it lower down.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following cities of Iraq lies in Al Anbar governorate ?

  • (a)Tikrit
  • (b)Basra
  • (c)Ramadi
  • (d)Mosul

  Answer(c) Ramadi — the capital of Al Anbar, Iraq's largest governorate, on the Euphrates west of Baghdad. Tikrit is in Salah ad-Din, Basra in Basrah in the far south, and Mosul in Nineveh in the north.