A plan of al-Mansur’s Round City of Baghdad, from Guy Le Strange’s study of the Abbasid city published in 1900Image: Guy Le Strange · Public domainWork begins on Baghdad, the Abbasid caliph’s Round City
The Abbasid dynasty seized the caliphate from the Umayyads in 750 and wanted a capital of its own, away from Syria. The second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, chose a site on the west bank of the Tigris, where the river runs close to the Euphrates, with trade routes by water and land. He called his city Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace, although it kept the name of the old village on the spot, Baghdad. Al-Mansur’s astrologers, Nawbakht and Mashallah, chose the most favourable moment to begin, and building started on 30 July 762. The city was laid out as a perfect circle, about 2.7 kilometres across, with ringed walls, four gates facing the corners of the empire and the caliph’s palace and great mosque at the centre. Baghdad grew far beyond its walls to become one of the largest and richest cities in the world, although nothing of the Round City survives today.
Source: Britannica: Baghdad, history ↗
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