Baghdad Round City

Timeline

1. 762West bank of the Tigris · IraqCaliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur chose the flat ground on the west bank of the Tigris, ordering construction of a symmetrical round city named the City of Peace, to escape the factional entanglements of the old capitals Kufa and Anbar.
2. c. 768–775Baghdad Round City · BaghdadThe double concentric walls, four gates (Kufa Gate, Basra Gate, Khorasan Gate, and Syria Gate), and the central Golden Palace precinct were completed; the court and administrative organs moved in, and the Round City formally became the core of the Abbasid imperial capital.
3. 786–809Baghdad Round City and surrounding new districts · BaghdadDuring Harun al-Rashid's reign, merchants, artisans, and envoys gathered; satellite districts such as Karkh and Shammasiyya gradually appeared on the Round City's outskirts, which evolved from a closed palatine enclosure into the axis of a larger metropolis.
4. 813–900Baghdad · BaghdadDuring civil war and the court's move to Samarra, Baghdad's population and commerce kept growing; the area within the Round City walls gradually became the historic core, while the city's economic center of gravity shifted to the ever-expanding outer city on both banks of the Tigris.