Caliph al-Mansur Founds Baghdad in 762, Shaping a Central Islamic Capital

On 30 July 762, Abbasid Caliph Abu Ja'far al‑Mansur founded the city of Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris River. He named the new capital Madinat al‑Salam, “City of Peace,” and designed it with a circular layout about two kilometres in diameter. The city was built with locally produced bricks, marble and massive walls, featuring four monumental gates – Kufa, Basra, Khurasan and Damascus – that opened onto the empire’s main trade routes.

Al‑Mansur’s plan aimed to create a political, economic and cultural centre that would dominate the Islamic world. Baghdad quickly grew into a hub of scholarship and commerce, becoming one of the largest cities on earth by the 10th century with an estimated population of 1.5‑2 million. Its early architecture, urban planning and status as a centre of translation and learning laid the foundations for the later Islamic Golden Age.