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Tikrit

Tikrit ( ) is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000. Tikrit is widely regarded as the cultural capital of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, with control of the city carrying symbolic weight due to its former prestige.

OverviewAI-generated

Tikrit is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Saladin Governorate. It is located in the Asia/Baghdad time zone. The city has a population of 260,000, while another source lists the population as 42,477. Its elevation above sea level is recorded as 137 meters in one dataset and 112 meters in another. The earliest written record of the place dates to 615.

The city is situated at coordinates 34.6, 43.683. It is identified as a markaz and a big city. The native and official name for the location is تكريت.

Synthesized by Vinony from 44 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Open Meteo, Openweathermap, OpenStreetMap, GeoNames, Vinony graph, Geo. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Weather now

cached 23h ago

32°clear sky

19% 5.0 m/s OpenWeatherMap

7-day forecast

via Open-Meteo

Place details

Locality: تكريت
Region: محافظة صلاح الدين
Country: العراق
Population: 42,477
Timezone: Asia/Baghdad

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Air quality

72US AQIModerate

PM2.5: 14.0 µg/m³
PM10: 27.0 µg/m³

As of 2026-08-11 03:00 · Open-Meteo

Key facts

Settlement.official_name: Tikrit
Settlement.settlement_type: City
Settlement.pushpin_map: Iraq
Settlement.pushpin_label_position: left
Settlement.pushpin_relief: yes
Settlement.pushpin_mapsize: 280
Settlement.pushpin_map_caption: Location of Tikrit within Iraq
Settlement.subdivision_type: Country
Settlement.subdivision_type1: Governorate
Settlement.subdivision_name1: Saladin
Settlement.subdivision_type2: District
Settlement.subdivision_name2: Tikrit
Settlement.leader_title: Mayor
Settlement.leader_name: Omar Tariq Ismail
Settlement.unit_pref: metric
Settlement.population_as_of: 2012
Settlement.population_total: 160,000
Settlement.elevation_m: 137

via Wikipedia infobox

Travel guide

Get in

Tikrit is along highway 1, running between Baghdad and Mosul, driving distance from Baghdad is about 170 km. The road is fully usable and there are buses plying the route, however there has been incidents of robbery and hijackings. Also, the rail line between the same cities also passes by Tikrit, however there has been no service for more than a decade. Some rehabilitation are underway, but don't hold your breath for the restart of passenger services. The old is located west of city centre.

There are no airports in the vicinity, with Baghdad being the nearest major airport.

See

thumb|Former presidential palace, overlooking the Tigris river.

Travel guide from Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 4.0)

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

16 sections

Contents

History
Bronze Age to Hellenistic period
Christian presence
Byzantine to Ottoman periods
World War I and after
Iraq War of 2003 and aftermath
ISIL insurgence (2011-15)
Notable people
Geography
Climate
Culture and community
Military facilities
Transportation
Gallery
References
External links

Originally created as a fort during the Assyrian empire, Tikrit was the birthplace of Muslim military leader Saladin. Many Iraqi government officials during the Ba'athist period (1968–2003) were from Tikrit; former president Saddam Hussein was born in the village of Al-Awja, 13 km south of the city.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Tikrit” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.