Iraq, in an area once home to some of the earliest civilisations, became a battleground for competing forces after the US-led ousting of President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Iraq, in an area once home to some of the earliest civilisations, became a battleground for competing forces after the US-led ousting of President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The Shia-led governments that have held power since then have struggled to maintain order, and the country has enjoyed only brief periods of respite from high levels of sectarian violence.
The Shia-led governments that have held power since then have struggled to maintain order, and the country has enjoyed only brief periods of respite from high levels of sectarian violence.
The majority Shia population, which had been excluded from power, was initially jubilant at the 2003 campaign to remove Saddam Hussein/
Violence and sabotage hinder the revival of an economy shattered by decades of conflict and sanctions. Iraq has the world's third largest reserves of crude oil.
But optimism gradually gave way to despair as insurgent groups - mainly drawn from embittered Sunnis, dismissed army officers and supporters of the former regime - began an increasingly bloody campaign of bomb attacks.
President: Fuad Masum
The insurgents - with al-Qaeda in Iraq among the most violent - targeted civilians as well as security forces, at times killing hundreds of people in one day.
Veteran Iraqi politician Fuad Masum was overwhelmingly elected by parliament in July 2014.
The conflict acquired a marked sectarian aspect in 2006-7 when Shia militant groups struck back with a campaign of kidnappings and killings.
He is the second ethnic Kurdish president of Iraq, succeeding Jalal Talabani.
The transfer of power to an interim government in June 2004 and, seven months later, the first multi-party elections in 50 years, which brought an overwhelmingly Shia-dominated coalition to power, failed to stem the violence.
Prime Minister: Haider al-Abadi
By 2008, however, a "surge" in US troop levels to confront the rebels, the co-opting of moderate Sunni tribesmen in the struggle against militants, and an improving Iraqi army succeeded in turning the situation around.
A veteran politician from the Shia State of Law party, Mr al-Abadi was deputy speaker of parliament when President Masum asked him to form a government in the summer of 2014.
In June 2009 US troops withdrew from Iraq's towns and cities, and the last remaining US forces left the country at the end of 2011. But the Shia-led government of Nouri al-Maliki failed to unite Iraq's various communities and from 2013 faced a rapidly-rising tide of extreme Sunni rebellion in Anbar Province.
Mr al-Abadi heads a cabinet with Sunni and Kurdish support, something which the previous government lacked.
By early 2014, Sunni rebels led by the extreme jihadist group calling itself Islamic State (IS) had established strongholds in the mainly Sunni Anbar Province.
Improved relations between the central government and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government made possible the signing of a deal in December 2014 on sharing Iraq's oil wealth and military resources.
Army resistance quickly melted away, and within months, IS fighters had begun to move into central and northern Iraq, threatening the unity of the state.
It was hoped this would help build the consensus needed to enable the country to face the common threat represented by the armed Islamic State group, which by the end of 2014 had advanced into northern and central Iraq.
A US-led coalition of regional and Western powers responded with a campaign of air strikes, as the Iraqi government attempted to group.
There are hundreds of publications and scores of radio and TV stations. But political and security crises have resulted in an increasingly fractured media scene.
After elections in 2014, Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with replaced the less divisive figure of Haider al-Abadi and a new broad-based government including Sunni Arabs and Kurds in September 2014.
Television is the main medium for news. Many media outlets have political or religious affiliations.
Cradle of civilisation
Some key dates in Iraq's history:
Straddling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and stretching from the Gulf to the Anti-Taurus Mountains, modern Iraq occupies roughly what was once ancient Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of human civilisation.
1534-1918 - Ottoman rule.
In the early Middle Ages, Iraq was the heartland of the Islamic Empire, but a brutal Mongol invasion in the 13th century destroyed its importance. Part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century, it came under British control after World War I, gaining independence in 1932.
1917 - Britain seizes control, creates state of Iraq.
The British-installed monarchy was toppled in 1958, and a coup in 1968 brought the Arab nationalist Ba'ath (Renaissance) party to power. Oil made the country rich and, when Saddam Hussein became president in 1979, petroleum made up 95% of its foreign exchange earnings.
1932 - Independence, followed by coups.
But the 1980-88 war with Iran and the 1991 Gulf War, sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, together with the subsequent imposition of international sanctions, had a devastating effect on its economy and society.
1979 - Saddam Hussein becomes president.
What remained of the economy was largely shattered by the 2003 invasion and the subsequent violence. Attacks by insurgents on Iraq's oil infrastructure cost the country billions of dollars in lost revenues.
1980-1988 - Iran-Iraq war.
In the north, the Kurdish community has managed to create an autonomous region of its own, and is pushing for greater territory and more powers.
1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait, putting it on a collision course with the international community.
The area threatened to hold a referendum on independence after the seizure of northern Iraq by IS militants in 2014, but backed down after the creation of more broad-based government in Baghdad.
1991 - Iraq subjected to sanctions, weapons inspections and no-fly zones.
2003 - US-led coalition invades, starting years of guerrilla warfare and instability.
2014 - The armed Islamic State group emerges as a major force in the region and seizes large parts of Iraq.
