In the most recent millennium, what is now Iraq has been made up of five cultural areas: Kurdish in the north centered on Arbil, Sunni Islamic Arabs in the center around Baghdad, Shi'a Islamic Arabs in the south centered on Basra, the Assyrians, a Christian people, living in various cities in the north, and the Marsh Arabs, a nomadic people, who live on the marshlands of the central river. There are also the Bedouin tribes primarily in southern and western Iraq, with smaller groups scattered throughout the country. Markets and bartering are the common form of trade.

Iraqi literature has a distinguished pedigree, with written texts preserved in the Iraqi National Library and Archives stretching back thousands of years up through the Ottoman Empire. Twentieth century Iraqi literature, beginning with the country's independence, is extremely varied, with an emphasis on poetry and the short story. There have been several generations of Modernist poetic experimentators such as Sargon Boulus (who translated Allen Ginsburg into Arabic) and Fadhil al-Azzawi, a member of the infamous 'sixties generation'; the rise of women writers such as Haifa Zangana and Alia Mamdouh; and a secular literature appearing under the Ba'ath regime. Egyptian writer and critic Mahmoud al-Wardani compiled a comprehensive review of modern and contemporary Iraqi literature, discussing trends such as taf'ila (free verse).

Under the American occupation, a new genre has appeared to capture both local and international attention: the blog. Anonymous bloggers Salam Pax and Riverbend both achieved international success for their on the ground, up to the minute portrayals of life after outside the Green Zone.

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