Hit
هيت | |
|---|---|
City | |
 Hit in 2020 | |
  Hit | |
| Coordinates: 33°38′42″N 42°49′35″E / 33.64500°N 42.82639°E | |
| Country |  Iraq |
| Province | al-Anbar |
| District | Hīt District |
| Population (2018) | |
| • Total | 66,700 |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (GMT+3) |
| Postal code | 31007 |
| Ancient name | Is |
Hit or Heet (Arabic: هيت, Hīt) is an Iraqi city in Al Anbar Governorate. Hit lies northwest of Ramadi, the provincial capital.
Straddling the Euphrates, the city of Hit was originally a small walled town surrounded by a halt moat and built on two mounds on the site of the ancient city of Is. In ancient times, the town was known for its bitumen wells; bitumen from the wells was used in the construction of Babylon over 3000 years ago, and for tasks such as caulking boats. Hit also became a frontier fortress for Assyria. Now, Hit is a marketplace for agricultural produce. Oil pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea cross the Euphrates there. It was regarded as the head of navigation on the river before the decline in river traffic.[1]
Hit marks the beginning of the high sedimentary plain on the Euphrates,[2] and it contains a number of hot springs.[3] The city of Hit is also famous for its ancient yet still functioning norias, a kind of water wheel that used to play an important role in the irrigation of fields and palm groves, particularly when water levels of the Euphrates receded.[4] The walled town, which had already suffered extensive damage during the Ottoman Empire, was abandoned in the 1920s, leading to its rapid deterioration.[5]
- ^ "Hīt". The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. V. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1980. p. 66. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
- ^ Ru'uf, Amad Abd al-Salam (2005). "هيت من أقدم العصور حتى الاحتلال البريطاني" [Hit from the earliest times to the British occupation]. Al-Hikma (in Arabic) (39): 151.
- ^ Abdullah, Bakr Ali (2 May 2006). "هيت منزل الآلهة ومدخل الأرض السفلى" [Hit, dwelling of the gods and entrance to the underworld]. Al-Sabah al-Jadid (in Arabic). No. 510.
- ^ Adnan, Abu Zeed (16 July 2019). "Can Iraq Get its Water Wheels on UNESCO World Heritage List?". Save the Tigris. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
- ^ Lina Raad Mohammed and Dhirgham Alobaydi (2020). "Evolution of the Urban Form of Historic Hit Citadel: Deriving a Schematic Model for Iraqi Fortified Cities". IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 745 (1): 012180. Bibcode:2020MS&E..745a2180R. doi:10.1088/1757-899X/745/1/012180. S2CID 216516205.