Hīt (Iraq)

Hit or Heet (Arabic: هيت, Hīt) is a city in Al Anbar Governorate of Iraq. Situated on the banks of the Euphrates River, it lies northwest of Ramadi, the provincial capital. The city is administrative capital for Hit District. A major city in the central region, it has a population over 100,000. 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. Hit marks the beginning of the high sedimentary plain on the Euphrates, and it contains a number of hot springs. 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. The walled town, which had already suffered extensive damage during the Ottoman Empire, was abandoned in the 1920s, leading to its rapid deterioration.