1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Iraq
Compare this sourced profile of Karbala, Iraq before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Karbala—1,218,732, Asia/Baghdad, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city in Karbala Governorate, Iraq.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Karbala is GeoNames ID 94824. Its recorded administrative path is Kerbala District → Karbala → Iraq, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Karbala occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2025-12-24; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Karbala ranks 431 by recorded population. Inside the 11 selected Iraq entries it ranks 5; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 88. Its 1,218,732 population value is 1.01 times the 1,211,849 median for the country cohort and 1.35 times the 902,588 regional median. Karbala sits in the second quarter of this atlas's Iraq population cohort. Karbala's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Karbala's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Najaf at 72.23 km with 482,576 recorded people; Abū Ghurayb at 78.118 km with 900,000 recorded people; Baghdad at 87.869 km with 7,216,000 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 15.639 km. Compared with Najaf, Karbala's recorded population is 2.53 times as large. Against Karbala, Najaf follows Kufa → Najaf → Iraq in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Iraq cohort, uses the shared Asia/Baghdad identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Karbala's. Against Karbala, Abū Ghurayb follows Abu Ghraib District → Baghdad → Iraq in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Iraq cohort, uses the shared Asia/Baghdad identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Karbala's. Against Karbala, Baghdad follows Al Rusafa → Baghdad → Iraq in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Iraq cohort, uses the shared Asia/Baghdad identifier, and carries capital of a political entity rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Karbala's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 568 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Karbala's nearest-coordinate gap sits in the second quarter of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 94824, the coordinate pair 32.6160 / 44.0249, country rank 5 of 11, and neighbor GeoNames 98860 at 72.23 km bind Karbala to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Karbala's reference point is 32.6160° north and 44.0249° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Baghdad is shared by 11 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Karbala's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Karbala's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Karbala's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Karbala, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Karbala's closest other entries in this atlas are Najaf (72.23 km), Abū Ghurayb (78.118 km), Baghdad (87.869 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Karbala, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2025-12-24; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.